If this suggests to you that many such claims are in part or entirely bogus, you are of course correct. Now we have proof of this "bogosity," to borrow a neologism from NPR's Magliozzi brothers. Station WRAL posts a story by a New York Times reporter who writes:
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. It is the latest evidence of a stronger economy pulling people back into the job market or preventing workers from being sidelined in the first place.Like the man says, much of Social Security disability was just open-ended unemployment insurance in disguise, wearing a medical fig leaf. Once Congress called the SSA on their non-enforcement of standards, the agency started to close the tap and the numbers have gone down.
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.
Analysis: the economy is up, disability is down, as expected. It turns out many of the “disabled” weren’t too ill to work after all, although of course this isn’t the conclusion the NYT wants you to draw.
