My friend Matt Berger passed on a link to an article at Slate by James Ledbetter called America’s Hidden Welfare Program, about the Social Security Disability Program. The program, according to Ledbetter, is a welfare program that encourages people not to work.
Now, let us stipulate that I have a financial stake in this, as I represent these lazy people who prefer to live on, as Ledbetter points out, an average of $12,000.00 a year rather than work at one of the jobs that are out there in such numbers.
Ledbetter is not totally callous:
Of course, many SSDI recipients are truly incapacitated. Others, however, are certainly employable in some fashion. All of them have had jobs at some point. And since the American workplace is demonstrably not more dangerous to life and limb than it was 30 or 40 years ago, it’s not immediately obvious why a large group of somewhat- or once-impaired people has more trouble getting and keeping jobs than their counterparts did in the recent past.
Need I point out that the third sentence is a non sequitur? People get disability because they can’t work anymore, either at their own job or at any other job for which they are reasonably qualified by dint of their age, education and experience. By definition, since you have to buy into the system to qualify, all people receiving disability once worked. That fact proves nothing.
Let’s stipulate also that applications for disability do go up when times are bad, meaning that some people apply for disability both because they actually have a disabling medical condition and because they can’t find work. And here we get to another point that should be obvious: it is, in fact, “immediately obvious” why a large group of people has more trouble getting and keeping jobs than their counterparts in the recent past. This country, a former economic and job creating powerhouse, has been shipping jobs overseas as fast as it can. After a while, those numbers add up. The first to feel the pinch are the marginal types, which we are creating in record numbers, given our failing economy, our failing educational system, and our failed health care system.
Ledbetter actually asserts that were these people denied disability we would undergo an economic resurgence because “[t]hese millions of workers extricated from payrolls represent untold lost billions in tax revenues and all manner of desperately needed economic activity (consumption, home purchases, etc.).”
That’s right, if not for these people who choose to live in a blissful state of poverty rather than pay taxes, earn money, buy houses, own cars, etc., the economy would be supercharged, because Ledbetter assumes that if they were not getting disability they would be working, despite the fact that about 10% of the people who consider themselves capable of working can’t find jobs.
Lets remember that the disability program is funded by the same Social Security Trust Fund that pays for regular benefits. It is an insurance program and it pays for itself. The people who apply for benefits have paid in to the system like everyone else. It is not a welfare program, at least by any definition of “welfare” that is consistent with the pejorative way in which Ledbetter is using it.
In these times, the Social Security Disability Program, like unemployment benefits, is the ultimate stimulus program. Every dime these people get is spent, meaning every dime represents economic activity. The problem lies not so much in where the money goes, but from where it comes. Because the payroll tax limit is so low, most of the money flowing into the trust fund is coming from lower middle to middle class people. If we taxed the rich a bit more, the stimulative effect would be even greater.
I would be the last person to say that there are no undeserving people on SSDI. There are. There are also people who have been denied benefits, even though they deserve them. That’s the nature of any imperfect adjudicatory system.
I don’t have the time to check all of Ledbetter’s assertions, but many are suspect, or misleading. The fact, for instance, that enrollment in the first year of the program was a tiny fraction of the number of people now enrolled is a good example. Most people are turned down in the early stages. It takes, on average, a good two years to even get approved. And of course in the first year of such a program there would be fewer enrollees than later, as enrollees accumulate and as cases are processed. Ledbetters’ argument is equivalent to arguing that Social Security is out of control because there are more people getting social security checks now than there were in 1940. Similarly, his assertion that Congress has been making it easier to get disability is not borne out by recent history, as far as I’m aware. Congress denied benefits to alcoholics in 1996. That cut a lot of people off the rolls. I’m not aware of any similar action that Congress took to broaden eligibility.
It doesn’t shock me, as it does Ledbetter, that 4% of the adults in this country are disabled, or that it’s costing us $200 billion a year to keep them out of complete destitution. That’s less than it cost for our unnecessary wars, and every dime is spent here. Nor do I believe, as Ledbetter apparently does, that only people who are about to die should be considered disabled. It certainly is strange that our pundit class is so capable of finding a crisis in a fully funded program that is paid for primarily by the working people it largely benefits, but finds it so hard to see a problem with government policies that have systematically shifted wealth in this country from those same working people to the top 1%.
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