According to OBD …
More workers joined the federal government’s disability program in June than got new jobs..
The economy created just 80,000 jobs in June … also during June, 85,000 workers left the workforce entirely to enroll in the Social Security Disability Insurance program.
While the economy has created 2.6 million jobs since June 2009, 3.1 million workers signed up for disability benefits.
In other words, the number of new disability enrollees has climbed 19% faster than the number of jobs created during the sluggish recovery … even after accounting for people who left the disability program because they died or aged into retirement.
In
Also in June, almost 275,000 put in applications for disability benefits.
Experts say that more people try to get on disability when jobs are scarce.
You think ?
My question: given the ever tightening OHSA regs, how could the workplace have gotten so dangerous?
Tags: disability, Federal dole, labor force participation, unemployment
The Homa Files 
July 10, 2012 at 2:11 pm |
I would have to say some of the increase in people going on disability may simply be a result of demographics – we are, as a society, getting older and more frail.
But there’s no way that accounts for all of it.
I think there has also been a cultural shift, especially in young men in our society. Once upon a time, there was a sort of unspoken civic duty if you were a man, to make something of yourself, to contribute to society, to take care of your family, to basically be an adult. I’m not sure if it’s my generation (I’m 37) or the younger generation that dropped the ball here, but something has happened. It now seems it’s become socially acceptable to sit idle and just get what you can from the system.
And I’m not really sure what’s behind it. In fairness, it is tough out there right now for young people looking for work. We’ve lost a lot of jobs in this country, especially blue collar jobs, that aren’t ever coming back to our shores. But I also think part of the problem is that so many young adults today grew up without a male role model. Society decided at some point in the past 30 or 40 years that fathers are merely optional. And I think that has had far-reaching social effects that we can’t fully comprehend yet. I think this may be one of them.
Aside from simply saying we need a civic awakening among the masses, I wish I had a better answer.