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The federal government spends more money each year on cash payments for disabled former workers than it spends on food stamps and welfare combined. Yet people relying on disability payments are often overlooked in discussions of the social safety net. People on federal disability do not work. Yet because they are not technically part of the labor force, they are not counted among the unemployed.
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"That's a kind of ugly secret of the American labor market," David Autor, an economist at MIT, told me. "Part of the reason our unemployment rates have been low, until recently, is that a lot of people who would have trouble finding jobs are on a different program."

Part of the rise in the number of people on disability is simply driven by the fact that the workforce is getting older, and older people tend to have more health problems.

But disability has also become a de facto welfare program for people without a lot of education or job skills. But it wasn't supposed to serve this purpose; it's not a retraining program designed to get people back onto their feet. Once people go onto disability, they almost never go back to work. Fewer than 1 percent of those who were on the federal program for disabled workers at the beginning of 2011 have returned to the workforce since then, one economist told me.
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Kids should be encouraged to go to school. Kids should want to do well in school. Parents should want their kids to do well in school. Kids should be confident their parents can provide for them regardless of how they do in school. Kids should become more and more independent as they grow older and hopefully be able to support themselves at around age 18.

The disability program stands in opposition to every one of these aims.
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In the meantime, federal disability programs became our extremely expensive default plan. The two big disability programs, including health care for disabled workers, cost some $260 billion a year.

People at the Social Security Administration, which runs the federal disability programs, say we cannot afford this. The reserves in the disability insurance program are on track to run out in 2016, Steve Goss, the chief actuary at Social Security, told me.

Goss is confident that Congress will act to keep disability payments flowing, probably by taking money from the Social Security retirement fund. Of course, the retirement fund itself is on track to run out of money by 2035.

Goss and his colleagues have worked out a temporary fix under which the retirement and disability funds will both run out of money by 2033. He says he hopes the country will have come up with a better plan by then.

Somewhere around 30 years ago, the economy started changing in some fundamental ways. There are now millions of Americans who do not have the skills or education to make it in this country.

We need to face the fact that not all children are destined for college. Today's educational system is so driven towards standardized test-taking which is geared towards children who are capable of higher education, that we have grossly neglected vocational tech. We have spent so much money on testing ever since No Child Left Behind that other areas are neglected. I remember back in the dark ages when I was in school, every district had a vo-tech school. We still need people with this sort of training. It's just not realistic or kind to pretend that if we push kids hard enough, they can all be prepared for college. And, frankly, college certainly hasn't been the answer to job security for the kids who have graduated in the last five or so years.

ajax18 wrote:Wow, that's very insightful and sounds exactly right to me. Beastie did you really write that?

People at the Social Security Administration, which runs the federal disability programs, say we cannot afford this. The reserves in the disability insurance program are on track to run out in 2016, Steve Goss, the chief actuary at Social Security, told me.

cinepro wrote:
So is it a problem, and if so, what's the solution?

Wasn't social security supposed to be a forced government savings plan?

ajax18 wrote:It just blows my mind how many people are piling into the disability wagon leaving fewer and fewer to actually pull it. I got another spam email as a part of the sign of the times,

"You may qualify for disability/social security benefits!" It's like winning the sweepstakes and definitely too good to be true. But I'm sure they get a lot of bites from people desperate to get out of work who hope just maybe their dream will come true.

This post also is being written by you - a person who makes in excess of 100k a year with West Virginia cost of living.

Yet you portray your tax burden as so severe that you're borderline impoverished. How about you stop working in exchange for 11k a year and tell us how awesome it is.