[Plantagenet]

The shift of millions of workers to SSI disability is partly responsible for holding back the recovery

WORST RECOVERY EVER partly due to massive in growth in what has become a "welfare" program

Lets see...millions of workers give up on looking for a job and become wards of the state. That means they get very little money to spend so they can't go SHOPPING!


No wonder this is the WORST RECOVERY EVER!

[ROCKMAN]

P – I also noted that story with special interest. Between my bad knee and MS I could easily qualify for disability. In fact someone recently questioned my not doing so. Obviously they didn’t appreciate how much I earn dragging myself around drill sites on my “polio crutches”. LOL. But what if I had a low income job (and if so much of my identity wasn’t tied so strongly to what I do)? Why not drop out? And even if I didn’t have my specific problems? The story I heard reported that a very large percentage of disability claims are based on soft tissue back pain which isn’t easy to disprove. Many in the society are entitled to support from the system IMHO. Unfortunately that sense of entitlement has spread like the flu.

[vision-master]

Between my bad knee and MS I could easily qualify for disability.

You just showed how little you know about disability. The only ppl who easily qualify for disability are the blind, terminal cancer, and serious heart problem ppl. Clearly you can't qualify bc you have shown you are able to work with your bad knee and MS. Also, if you can do office work, have a college degree you most likey will NOT be considered disabled, even if your over the age of 55. Many ppl have to wait years (without working) until their claim goes before ALJ.

[dsula]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vision-master', '[')i]Between my bad knee and MS I could easily qualify for disability.

You just showed how little you know about disability. The only ppl who easily qualify for disability are the blind, terminal cancer, and serious heart problem ppl. Clearly you can't qualify bc you have shown you are able to work with your bad knee and MS. Also, if you can do office work, have a college degree you most likey will NOT be considered disabled, even if your over the age of 55. Many ppl have to wait years (without working) until their claim goes before ALJ.

[ROCKMAN]

Some truth to what vision-master says but certainly not the entire story as dsula points out. I have a brother and sister getting some disability benefits and both are very capable of doing minimum wage jobs. I also occasionally work with some disadvantged folks who have also learned how to work the system. It's hard to blame them for taking advantage of what the system makes available. There's little else they can do to improve their circumstances. As far as my personal situation I've been advised by neurologist that I can wake up tomorrow morning and claim incapacity and almost certainly be granted. But why would I want to take a big pay cut. LOL.

[John_A]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vision-master', '[')i]Between my bad knee and MS I could easily qualify for disability.

You just showed how little you know about disability. The only ppl who easily qualify for disability are the blind, terminal cancer, and serious heart problem ppl. Clearly you can't qualify bc you have shown you are able to work with your bad knee and MS. Also, if you can do office work, have a college degree you most likey will NOT be considered disabled, even if your over the age of 55. Many ppl have to wait years (without working) until their claim goes before ALJ.

[dinopello]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dsula', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vision-master', '[')i]Between my bad knee and MS I could easily qualify for disability.

You just showed how little you know about disability. The only ppl who easily qualify for disability are the blind, terminal cancer, and serious heart problem ppl. Clearly you can't qualify bc you have shown you are able to work with your bad knee and MS. Also, if you can do office work, have a college degree you most likey will NOT be considered disabled, even if your over the age of 55. Many ppl have to wait years (without working) until their claim goes before ALJ.

[vision-master]

Ridiculous. Alcoholism qualifies, if you can configure it right. See, you use the alcoholism to claim you are now psychologically damaged in some way (an obvious point, otherwise you wouldn't be an alcoholic) and presto! Disability is yours!

Not that easy, alcoholism does not qualify one, nor does obesity.

NONE of you really understand the process, 1st off 'Disability is yours' takes at least 6 Months (before a decision) these days, second age, education and past work experience means everything.

Example: Some guy hits 50, has arthritis real bad, high school education, has done maunal labor for the past 20 years, most likely will be considered disabled. Take the same person, same age, college education, arthritis real bad, has done office work their whole life - they will NOT be considered disabled. It's called the 'Grid'.

[Plantagenet]

5.4 million people have gone on disability on Obama's watch, versus creation of 2.3 million jobs

Disabililty numbers rise rapidly under Obama during WORST RECOVERY EVER

At least we now know why the unemployment rate has been going down, even though though the job market remains in the toilet.

Unfortunately, once people get on the disability gravy train (free money and healthcare) they almost never leave the federal dole. We may even have reached some kind of tipping point, as the number of folks on disability has now grown to the point that it is weakening the recovery and adding significantly to federal deficits, and since the weak recovery means more unemployed people try to get on disability that further weakens the recovery.

Thats the problem with these nice sounding liberal programs---they grow ever larger and have unintended consequences that can't be foreseen when they are established.


The law of unintended consequences

[vision-master]

Unfortunately, once people get on the disability gravy train (free money and healthcare)

Free health care/ hardly, they pay like any other senior unless they are eligible for medicaid, if on medicaid from the ages of 55-65, once they pass on, their assests go to the County. My poor sisters death caused the family to be out about $70,000 (sale of her little house she worked hard for). Once she got RA really bad, it got to the point she couldn't even comb her hair many day's.

Be real careful about your attitude on SSDI, as your chances to be on it in your lifetime are about 20%. Then again, more ppl than you think never make it (live) past their late 50's, maybe early 60's.

So your fantasy about living to a ripe old age without serious health problems is just myth for MOST ppl.

[Plantagenet]

Obama has finally released his 2014 budget. It calls for cuts in social security and medicare, together with more tax hikes for everybody else.

And then to celebrate, Obama threw another big party for himself in the White House.


Hoo-RAY! Our benefits are being cut and our taxes are going up!! Lets party down with Obama!

[ROCKMAN]

P - Correct me of wrong...all I know is what I heard on NPR. His plan doesn't cut payments but just reduces the amount they were going to increase. IOW future checks would still be bigger but just not as big as had been scheduled.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', 'P') - Correct me of wrong...all I know is what I heard on NPR. His plan doesn't cut payments but just reduces the amount they were going to increase.

[ROCKMAN]

P - I agree about inflation eating away at purchasing power. But that's different then telling folks their checks will be reduced. That's the type of misleading spin both the right and left use. And IMHO makes it all the more difficult to reach some reasonable middle ground. IMHO such efforts are intentionally designed to keep folks divided. You see it in very major issue we're facing today. And in doing so folks are forced to side with one group or the other instead of focusing on the systemic problems.

[Buddy_J]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', 'A')nd IMHO makes it all the more difficult to reach some reasonable middle ground.

[ROCKMAN]

Buddy – Maybe but I don’t see him working the population any differently than the R’s. Both sides are doing whatever they can for leverage. Each side does have their own valid ideological positions IMHO. But in the end it’s all about maintaining political power. And both sides are happy to keep it split between them with either side periodically being a bit more dominant than the other. But they achieve their goal: keeping folks focused on supporting either side more than supporting solutions to our problems. And in my more cynical moods see TPTB creating division in order to maintain the status quo.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', 'P') - I agree about inflation eating away at purchasing power. But that's different then telling folks their checks will be reduced.

[Plantagenet]

Its even worse than that.

Obama not only wants to understate inflation to cheat seniors out of their social security----he wants to understate inflation when they index income for the IRS as well.---Over time this would push everyone who pays taxes into higher and higher brackets thereby sneakily increasing their tax rates and their taxes.

What a lying dog.


Obama wants to raise everyone's taxes by lying about the inflation rate

[Plantagenet]

US Consumer spending continues to contract. Funny how raising everybody's taxes results in them having less money to spend.....I'm sure Obama will eventually figure out that his grand success at raising taxes sucks money out of the economy and just contributes to making THE WORST RECOVERY EVER even worse.

[Plantagenet]

Noted economist says the WORST RECOVERY is unlike any prior recovery---its actually so weak that it should be cosidered a recession

Why the US economy should be considered to be in recession

Faced with this unusually weak recovery and the government’s relative impotence, at least one team of economists who carry a significant amount of weight believe that the U.S. is, in fact, in recession -- perhaps not the garden variety recession we are used to (namely, two consecutive quarters of declining gross national product) but a recession nonetheless.

This group, the Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI), a non-partisan outfit that forecasts turning points in economic growth and inflation, defines recession as “a self-reinforcing downturn in economic activity, when a drop in spending leads to cutbacks in production and thus jobs, triggering a loss of income that spreads across the country and from industry to industry, hurting sales and in turn feeding back into a further drop in production.”

Or, put less technically, a vicious cycle. Based on this definition, “it is ECRI’s view that the economy is currently in a recession that began in 2012,” said Lakshman Achuthan, ECRI Chief Operating Officer, in an email to International Business Times.


Is the weak Obama recovery is so weak its actually a recession?