Every Month 14 Million Americans Collecting Disability Check From The Government, Costs More Than Welfare and Food Stamps Combined

Weaselzippers has; 

Every Month 14 Million Americans Collecting Disability Check From The Government, Costs More Than Welfare and Food Stamps Combined

The SSDI system is so rife with fraud and abuse it’s sickening, and we get stuck with the bill.

Via NPR:

In the past three decades, the number of Americans who are on disability has skyrocketed. The rise has come even as medical advances have allowed many more people to remain on the job, and new laws have banned workplace discrimination against the disabled. Every month, 14 million people now get a disability check from the government.

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.

In other words, people on disability don’t show up in any of the places we usually look to see how the economy is doing. But the story of these programs — who goes on them, and why, and what happens after that — is, to a large extent, the story of the U.S. economy. It’s the story not only of an aging workforce, but also of a hidden, increasingly expensive safety net.
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Here’s one of countless examples:

(WSJ) — The Social Security Administration’s inspector general is investigating a case of potentially widespread disability fraud in Puerto Rico, two people familiar with the matter said, part of the agency’s stepped-up efforts to tackle abuses in the financially struggling program.

The inspector general, Patrick O’Carroll, told an audience at an Aug. 30 disability-examiners conference that the investigation was tied to a pharmaceutical plant that recently closed in Puerto Rico, with 300 employees losing their jobs.

Shortly after the layoff, 290 of the 300 former employees applied for Social Security disability benefits and they all used the same doctor, who lived far from the plant, Mr. O’Carroll told the audience. Mr. O’Carroll didn’t identify the doctor, whose identity couldn’t be learned.
Jonathan Lasher, an assistant inspector general at the agency, wouldn’t comment on the case, but said, “The office of the inspector general is continuing to pursue any number of fraud allegations in Puerto Rico related to the Social Security disability program.”

Thanks Zip, NPR, & WSJ.

And we Start cleaning up this Nation Wrecking SSDI Back Breaker Where? 

Psychiatry: Disability, Chronic Disease, and Death, . . . without anything to sell but 'Hope'.

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