Disability Rolls Explode

Disability isn’t just for the disabled anymore. The Obama Administration has been using it to keep the official unemployment rate down to only twice what it was under Bush by paying people not to work when they have “disabilities” including unprovable back pain and mental problems such as mood disorders, which between them account for the majority of disability cases. As a result, the amount of money spent on disability is now so astronomical, even government teat–sucking NPR has become alarmed. A few discoveries from a recent investigation, via Breitbart:

• The federal government spends more money each year on cash payments for disabled former workers than it does on food stamps and welfare combined; America’s two largest disability programs, including health care for disabled workers, costs taxpayers $260 billion a year
• In some parts of the country, such as Hale County, Alabama, one out of every four working-age adults collects a disability check
• As of 2011, 33.8% of newly diagnosed disabled workers cited “back pain and other musculoskeletal problems” as their reason for being unable to work. In 1961, the top reason for being disabled was “heart disease, stroke”
• Disabled workers do not get counted in the unemployment figures. If they did, the numbers would be far higher
• Less than 1% of people who went on disability at the beginning of 2011 have returned to the workforce
• The Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program–which covers kids and adults–has exploded. SSI is now seven times larger than it was 30 years ago.

This despite medical advances that make more people able to work, and intrusive federal laws banning workplace discrimination against the handicapped. The percentage of those collecting disability who really are disabled shrinks with each passing month — during which another 250,000 apply for the free handouts.

Obviously this mass theft cannot be sustained through borrowing indefinitely. But until the reckoning comes, the looting and slacking will continue to accelerate under the guidance of the Looter and Slacker in Chief.

On tips from Bob Roberts, Comrade J, and Alan. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

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