Fewer than 1.5 million Americans applied to the Social Security Administration for disability coverage last year, the lowest since 2002. Applications are running at an even lower rate this year, government officials say.
All told, 8.63 million workers received disability benefits in May, down from a peak of 8.96 million in September 2014. A drop of several hundred thousand may not sound like much. But it is a sharp turnaround from what seemed to be an inexorable rise, in which the disability rolls more than doubled over the past 25 years. That increase led some conservative lawmakers to criticize the program as wasteful and riddled with fraud.
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"The number of Americans seeking Social Security disability benefits is plunging, a startling reversal of a decades-old trend that threatened the program’s solvency..."
The NYT reports.
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With a growing economy an jobs available, people who were faking a disability are coming off it to work.
I'm sure this confounds Democrats to no end...
Any job will pay better than disability, the golden handcuffs are the medical benefits. It may be that many of these people are simply delayed from going on SSDI. Still, that's not bad either, for a number of reasons.
FTR, people seldom fake disability successfully. Exaggeration is more common.
I wonder how much money the government is saving with fewer people on SS and/or welfare programs plus more people working and paying taxes.
I heard today that the roaring economy, which is growing at a 4% clip, is just a fluke and Trump's policies are going to bring it crashing down (fingers crossed amirite).
I think somehere here mentioned recently that Trump lied during his campaign because he said the USA would grow at 3% with him as president and it had been reported it was only gorwing at 2.2%.
Do they has the sads now that annual growth is at 4%?
Fewer people are starting on disability and many of those already on are baby boomers aging into medicare and social security. That has a bigger effect than people on disability getting jobs. The article talks about that, even as it features the story of one disabled man who got a job and off the program.
I don't think the article discusses the people who get off disability by dying. Seems to me a lot of painkiller users have been dying.
Now that it pays more to have a job than to take disability people are leaving disability. My god, what a surprise!
That increase led some conservative lawmakers to criticize the program as wasteful and riddled with fraud.
The New York Tangential Times
Watch out! After Trump destroys the economy, people will be digging in the garbage for something to eat. Trump will still dine on caviar and champagne. He doesn't give a rat's ass about the disabled or the homeless.
Watch out! After Trump destroys the economy, people will be digging in the garbage for something to eat.
I think we should invent a new game: Sarcasm or Trumpit?
But the tariffs on proper caviar and champagne will be through the roof by then. These things are imported you know.
I don't think Trump likes caviar or champagne actually.
He's a meat and potatoes, with ketchup, sort of fellow.
Or perhaps a taco bowl.
And he famously doesn't drink.
I have a good friend who is an administrative law judge (ALJ) with the social security administration. I don't know about the other judges, but she works over 60 hours per week dealing with this issue. Anything that helps her work less makes me happy. The judges have lifetime appointments, and not that many (as a fraction of the total number of judges) could possibly have come on during Trump's tenure.
Not a path anyone should have to travel, any decent job is better if you can do it.
Edge cases are where you will see behavioral changes due to change in incentives.
Someone with a plausible physical problem can be persuaded to ignore it if not unemployed. The unemployed, with no prospect of employment, have an incentive to pursue disability benefits if a case can be made.
From 2008/9 - 2017 SS Disability was for a lot of people a sort of unemployment insurance, a Euro-style dole, and the Fed Gov was at least tacitly OK with that.
Much of the decline in labor force participation was due to people following this path. There was even talk at the time that this was a reasonable way of pensioning off surplus labor.
All this resulted from the extraordinarily long recession, the lack of real recovery.
On the other hand, there is still no sign in the stats of a "Trump" increase in the rate of improvement. TBD as far as I am concerned, in spite of these other numbers -
Some useful charts -
The employment rate for persons 25-54, prime working age. This avoids issues about an aging population or young people wasting time in school. There is so far no Reagan-like 1983-84 rocket-climb.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LREM25TTUSM156S
Labor force participation rate 25-54. Note that the actual low point of the recession, by this metric, was as late as July 2015. Interesting timing.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU01300060
Lawrence Person said... [hush][hide comment]
With a growing economy an jobs available, people who were faking a disability are coming off it to work.
I'm sure this confounds Democrats to no end...
Yep, during Obama years disability became easier to get after your unemployment ran out. Many people in charge were sympathetic, in my opinion.
I dunno. You can get a job (when jobs are available) or you can go on the dole when jobs are not available. This ain't rocket science folks.
Obama's policies are finally yielding their predicted results.
Warning: This comment may contain sarcasm.
SS Disability played a huge role in the explosive growth of Oxycontin abuse in middle America. The "pain clinics" attached to pill mills in Florida and Appalachia provided medical letters justifying the SS disability claim. The 90 day Oxy scripts split with dealers or addicts supplied way more income than the SS disability check. Cutting off the Oxy scripts probably does more to push the folks back into the work force. And now Trump is creating jobs that pay way better than the SS benefits.
buwaya puti,
That is not, I am afraid, particularly interesting. Labor force participation depends on the numerator and the denominator. The inflection point happened when the denominator stopped getting relatively smaller. As more people rejoined (or newly joined) the workforce but did not yet have jobs the participation rate goes down. It's predictable that people would not be leaving the workforce at the same rate in 2015 as they were in the preceding 7 years. And since new job creation was relatively stable (unimpressively so) during the period the numerator was not driving labor force participation rate changes.
But the labor force participation rate would not be affected, mathematically, by the employment status of the population.
It is in that sense a very simple number - (people employed+those seeking employment)/population
Someone who can go off disability to take a job in the Trump administration was not necessarily faking his disability under Obama. A blind man or a paraplegic may be employable, working at a desk with a keyboard, in a booming labor market, but unemployable in a bad economy, when competing with bunches of able-bodied sighted people who can do the job just as well or even a little better.
More people looking for work would increase the labor force participation rate, no matter what.
You could look into the denominator, which is the population in that age range, if there was some weird change in that, disproportionately killing off or aging out people more or less likely to have or seek employment, depending on the direction of your trend.
Wrong denominator
I'm sure a raft of bureaucrats are getting worried. Like when the number of welfare recipients declined.
Shameless 'Disability'
"But look: I can do this... "
Logically, disability applications should decline over time with the massive amount of money and effort invested in worker safety, both by unions and government regulations.
My understanding is that when the last major recession hit in 2007/2008, a lot of unemployed people in their 50s who couldn't land another job tried for disability to tide them over until regular Social Security kicked in. The spike as the recession hit never made sense any other way, it's not like work in the US had suddenly become so much more hazardous.
Due to the economy doing better, fewer people apply to disability for economic reasons and most of those who did this in the prior decade are now able to collect regular Social Security and are no longer on disability.
“startling” reversal—the editor said they were overusing “unexpected.”
Trump heals the sick! Next thing you know he'll be showing up at a Child Internment Center™ with a basket of loaves and fishes.
Wait, so disability varies with the state of the economy, the availability of work, and incentives for workers?
So you're saying . . .
He doesn't give a rat's ass about the disabled or the homeless.
Psychosis speaks !
Mid first term Obama folks in more poorer areas round here walked around carrying canes and pushing walkers. Billboards touting SSDI lawyer's success rates popped up where malt liquor ads traditionally were posted. From my view, I think the professor has it nailed. Substance abuse takes it's toll. Livers give out, users OD, crack houses get robbed with multiple fatalities. Drug fuelled vendettas abound. Drug proliferation creates a massive underground cash economy. If you're dealin all you need is a little extra cushion and some health care bennies. Huge numbers of the disabled and homeless are the direct result of substance abuse.
How did the regulations change?
Thank you Trump, for MAGA.
FTR, people seldom fake disability successfully. Exaggeration is more common.
If you have a mild disability which allows you to work--e.g., back pain--and you exaggerate it to something that keeps you from working and qualifies you for benefits, that is faking.
There is no actual issue with solvency with any federal program.
Meth / speed can really destroy a life style from what I observed. Basically addiction, be it alcohol, gambling, or drugs. Seems to have a list generation I encountered in So. Ca, just getting buy, often living with parents, not keeping a full time job, sometimes homeless, lots of crime.
Lost generation
And the same place we have lots of illegal immigrants, that have a better work ethic competing for jobs.
Did Franklin D Roosevelt institute ANY programs that were not wasteful or riddled with fraud?
I always thought that the answer as to why is that Trump is personally killing sick people with a rusty spoon while he laughs hysterically. Isn't that what ARM would say?
So, looks like, once again, "the new normal" actually meant "Obama's policies suck, and are destroying us"
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