The Necropolitan Sentinel

EBL linked in comments a few days ago to another article saying that a family of four whose breadwinners bring home $60k actually earn less tangible dollars than a family of four whose breadwinners earn $14,500, but who receive full benefits, including food subsidies, health care, etc. When so-called middle class Americans complain that they’re being reamed, this is the kind of situation that they’re talking about. What’s the lesson? If you’re the sole $14,500 breadwinner in your family, and you’re receiving those benefits, and your boss offers you a raise, make sure he realizes that he’s going to have to boost your income to about $70,000 pre-tax dollars for you to experience any elevation of your standard of living.

When benefits run out, though, what do people do? Many of them decide to go on disability, citing mental/emotional handicaps. In short, officially recognized psychological affliction is rising steadily under Obama.

Being unemployed for too long reportedly is driving people mad and costing taxpayers billions of dollars in mental illness and other disability claims.

The New York Post reported Sunday that as unemployment checks run out, many jobless are trying to gain government benefits by declaring themselves unhealthy.

More than 10.5 million people — about 5.3 percent of the population aged 25 and 64 — received disability checks in January from the federal government, the Post wrote, a 18 percent jump from before the recession.

People who reach the end of their unemployment benefits and end up successfully turning to SS disability usually aren’t counted as jobless again as long as it stays that way.

From a recent Congressional Budget Office report (PDF):

The official unemployment rate excludes those individuals who would like to work but have not searched for a job in the past four weeks as well as those who are working part-time but would prefer full-time work; if those people were counted among the unemployed, the unemployment rate in January 2012 would have been about 15 percent.

Factor in many of the above long-long term unemployed who have been accepted on SS disability and that unemployment number would get even higher.

Gee, what do the Feds say about this?

Although it has been reported that the economy is slowly getting better after some turbulent times, Social Security Disability claims are still on the rise. Why is the Social Security Administration receiving more and more claims for disability benefits? Why was there an increase of 21-percent for disability applications between 2008 and 2009? Even more importantly, what does this increasing number of disability claims mean for disability applicants? If you are wondering why there are more disability claims than ever before and how the rising number of applications is affecting processing times (and how it will affect future disability benefits), the following information will answer your Social Security Disability questions.

What is Causing the Increase in Disability Benefits?

There isn’t any one single reason for the increase in Social Security Disability claims. The increase in disability applications is actually due to a number of causes, and all of them are coinciding at once.

The first reason for the rise in Social Security Disability claims is due to the aging baby boom population. As this generation ages and becomes disabled in the workforce, more and more people are filing claims for disability benefits. While many people weren’t worried about the baby boomers’ impact on Social Security until the generation reached retirement age, it is becoming apparent that the generation is having an affect on the disability program.

Another reason for the rise in disability claims is due to the downturn in the nation’s economy. Some of the disabled individuals who may have otherwise tried to work in spite of their disability are finding it easier to file for Social Security Disability benefits than it is to find a job that can accommodate their disabling condition.
What Does the Increase in Disability Claims Mean to Disabled Applicants?

Does the rise in Social Security Disability applications mean it will be harder for individuals to obtain Social Security Disability benefits?

Not necessarily. What it does mean, however, is that the backlog of disability applications being processed by the Social Security Administration may become more of an issue, creating increased delays in disability application processing times.

Just. wow. They know that people are giving up looking for jobs, because it’s just too hard, but that’s not going to change their policies. And disability, in almost all cases, is forever. How many of these people, do you think, will find ways of supplementing their disability income by working under the table?

By the way, the methodology of this study is accessible, and it makes assumptions that are actually much less outside the bounds of likelihood than studies such as this, which have political ends, usually do. Even if you don’t think that the parameters fit the average case, the bottom line about how hard it is to get ahead because of everyone you’re towing along behind is alarming. So, when liberals say that capitalism has failed, just ask them if they’re old enough to remember what that was like.

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