The disability "industry"

[ThankGod4Walsh]

It's in a state's best interest to refer someone to SS disability because the federal government picks up the tab, rather than go through extended unemployment.

Maybe now you are starting to see where a bunch of those vanishing workers went, who couldn't be labeled employed or unemployed.

Burn up your 99 weeks of unemployment, magically you can be classified as "disabled."



Obama rocks though. Right? :)

From July 2010 to April 2012, the decline in the number of people collecting extended and emergency unemployment benefits was 2.46 million. Over the same time period the number of people collecting disability benefits increased by 2.20 million. We suspect the similarity in the inverse relationship is more than coincidence.

http://finance.townhall.com/columnis...ted/page/full/

[PatsFan2003]

This has been happening since the late 90's so the Obama hate is what it is.

[RayClay]

It's in a state's best interest to refer someone to SS disability because the federal government picks up the tab, rather than go through extended unemployment.

Maybe now you are starting to see where a bunch of those vanishing workers went, who couldn't be labeled employed or unemployed.

Burn up your 99 weeks of unemployment, magically you can be classified as "disabled."



Obama rocks though. Right? :)


http://finance.townhall.com/columnis...ted/page/full/

Who was President between 2008 and 2010?

[Hyped]

It's obviously a huge problem and i admire you for overcoming your issue (you have a hearing issue as i recall, I don't know the severity) but it seems more complicated than you describe. How many sit down jobs in McDonald's for deaf people who didn't graduate high school do you think there are?

Not trying to be funny, or insensitive, by the way.

I am completely deaf and don't even speak...well I have intelligible speech at best, but refuse to use it at work because I like to control the information flow to email, IM, video calls, gestures, and etc..even though I can lip read pretty decent...I don't let people know that just so they won't try to speak to me.

As for the jobs out there for even an able bodied deaf person with a HS degree....slim pickings. For starters, (assuming the deaf person is like me and cannot/doesn't want to speak) you can count out any customer service type of job...or a job like telemarketing....also count out the military, police force, firemen, and etc.... Then on top of that, there's always discrimination....either willful discrimination or by ignorance. Basically, if you are deaf....its college or bust...and even with a degree, its even harder to get a job compared to other disabled groups...

The only reason I have a job is because I generate 300% more work than anyone else at my company. I am one of the very few deaf people in this country that work in corporate. Most of my deaf peers are self employed or in the deaf education field or teach ASL at the college level (great gig if you can get it...3 days a week and a good living) or work in the telecommunications industry.....of course there are ALL kinds of deaf people who do all kinds of things, I am just speaking of the majority of ASL using deaf.

Back in the old days, deaf people often got printing press jobs because they were the only ones who could feel a jam in the machine...so prior to 1980, if you went to any newspaper...you would likely see deaf people working on the press.

Nowadays, slim pickings even for able bodied deaf people.......

[Hyped]

One solution would be to send all disabled people to the military to serve in non-combat roles. Or to force every citizen to serve a two year stint in the military after high school and to pick up skills while in the military....

[PatsFan2003]

One solution would be to send all disabled people to the military to serve in non-combat roles. Or to force every citizen to serve a two year stint in the military after high school and to pick up skills while in the military....

Those aren't bad ideas. A lot of the disabled on the segment could likely do desk jobs if they had a chance but it's unlikely they'd get a chance in the free market.

That and give people something more beyond a high school education even without college.

[RayClay]

I am completely deaf and don't even speak...well I have intelligible speech at best, but refuse to use it at work because I like to control the information flow to email, IM, video calls, gestures, and etc..even though I can lip read pretty decent...I don't let people know that just so they won't try to speak to me.

As for the jobs out there for even an able bodied deaf person with a HS degree....slim pickings. For starters, (assuming the deaf person is like me and cannot/doesn't want to speak) you can count out any customer service type of job...or a job like telemarketing....also count out the military, police force, firemen, and etc.... Then on top of that, there's always discrimination....either willful discrimination or by ignorance. Basically, if you are deaf....its college or bust...and even with a degree, its even harder to get a job compared to other disabled groups...

The only reason I have a job is because I generate 300% more work than anyone else at my company. I am one of the very few deaf people in this country that work in corporate. Most of my deaf peers are self employed or in the deaf education field or teach ASL at the college level (great gig if you can get it...3 days a week and a good living) or work in the telecommunications industry.....of course there are ALL kinds of deaf people who do all kinds of things, I am just speaking of the majority of ASL using deaf.

Back in the old days, deaf people often got printing press jobs because they were the only ones who could feel a jam in the machine...so prior to 1980, if you went to any newspaper...you would likely see deaf people working on the press.

Nowadays, slim pickings even for able bodied deaf people.......

Forgive me if I'm patronizing, but you are an exceptional person. For the sake of argument people that aren't as driven/talented as yourself might receive disability but are not the group we are talking about here.

[AndromedaPatFan]

It's tough for me to imagine large numbers of sit-down jobs that can be performed by dubiously-educated people and can't also be outsourced to India or the Philippines. That may be a/the crux of the problem.

This even applies to secretarial work, actually. My best secretaries/office managers where perhaps the ones with high school degrees only but the right experience and/or personality. But I had the last of those in the late 1990s. If I hired for such a role now, I'd want somebody with the reading comprehension, technical adaptability, etc. I'd naturally look to a more educated person for.

Basically, even what we'd think of as low-level jobs involve interacting with ever-changing computing systems.

[Hyped]

Forgive me if I'm patronizing, but you are an exceptional person. For the sake of argument people that aren't as driven/talented as yourself might receive disability but are not the group we are talking about here.

Yeah, I went off on a tangent there...

We can't really blame anyone who takes a disability check when it hurts to stand up all day for a job that only pays 40% more than the check. What we need to do is to make use of these people somehow. Maybe start up a government wide internship program...and have anyone who files for disability benefits to be sent through this program..they would meet with a career counselor to asses what they can do...then be sent somewhere someone needed an extra person to I don't know...do something... basically put people to work and get them some experience.. I know a lot of people here believe in the decay of society's morals...but I believe that most people want to be contributing members of society...yes there will always be a few that just want to game the system and be lazy...but most people do want to be productive. When I was unemployed for a 4-5 month stretch before getting a part time job...I'd get up in the morning and see everyone go to work/school...and feel worthless and wanted to work so badly...

[ctc]

http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/

Arguments:

• If you look at welfare + unemployment + disability, the numbers look a lot worse than if disability is left out of the equation.
• States have an incentive to label people needing assistance as "disabled", since the feds pick up the whole bill in that case.
• If a "disabled" kid proves he isn't disabled, his family loses a fat -- by the standards of a family in poverty that is -- check.
• If your education is only high school level, in many cases there is no job for you that allows you to sit down, and so back pain really can be disabling.
• Disability income is poverty-level.

This sounds like the institutionalization of being poor. And using kids to up your 'status' compounds the problem.

[ThankGod4Walsh]

This has been happening since the late 90's so the Obama hate is what it is.

Been happening longer, actually. But Bush Jr. had a 1% rise in the ratio of disability recipients per active worker over his 8 years, Obama's already well past that.

But by all means let's blame Bush for more stuff, that never gets old.

[PatsFan2003]

Been happening longer, actually. But Bush Jr. had a 1% rise in the ratio of disability recipients per active worker over his 8 years, Obama's already well past that.

But by all means let's blame Bush for more stuff, that never gets old.

I'm not BLAMING anyone. The first one here that was trying to lay it on the hands of a single president was you. It never gets old.

The effect we're talking about grows when the economy is good (which is why the late 90's were mentioned) and REALLY grows when the economy is bad.

At the bottom of it I think is the issue that lower level jobs, particularly those of a physical nature have been going away in this country for a while.