Saturday, July 07, 2012

Unemployment and Disability

Distressing headline from the Daily Mail:
85,000 Americans went on disability benefit in June (while only 80,000 jobs were added in same period)
And it's not a one-month fluke. As Investor's Business Daily reports, it's a trend:
While the economy has created 2.6 million jobs since June 2009, fully 3.1 million workers signed up for disability benefits.
I suppose some of this is our aging population. The baby boom is in the red zone for disability claims - old, but not old enough for Medicare and Social Security based on age alone.

But a lot of it is the unemployment situation. People can't find a job they want to do, or possibly any job at all. Their unemployment benefits run out. And if they have a condition that might qualify, they go through the hassle of applying for disability benefits. They wouldn't have done that if they had a job, or unemployment insurance, but... they don't.

I've known "disabled" people who could, in fact, have been doing productive work. Not all, but definitely some.

It's a bad trend.
When will it end?

2 comments:

Arena said...

This is a huge issue. I didn't know how much disabled Veteran's get from the VA until I started working with them. Between VA and SS they can bring in $4,000 per month tax free. Where is the incentive to get better? In fact, it behooves them to 'stay sick'.

John Enright said...

Wow. I recently read that there had been a surge in veterans, in particular, applying for disability benefits. I didn't realize the money could be so good.