Slackers in the Mainstream

[dgs49]

Over the past week I have had three separate and unrelated conversations with (1) the financial controller of a local township, (2) a supervisory insurance claims adjuster, and (3) an HR person from my company, all on the same subject: The growing population of people who have discovered how to "milk" disability insurance.

I heard of a maintenance worker who has been on disability for two years (!) while "recovering" from a knee replacement; people claiming disability for obesity and "stress"; kids on SSA for who-knows-what. The knee-replacement tale was contrasted with one of a 70-something secretary at the borough building who was back to work ONE WEEK after her knee replacement earlier this year. My bowling buddy has a next-door neighbor who worked for about a year for Allegheny County, then "hurt his back," and has been on disability for 10-15 years since. They have had spies on his property (he lives out in the Sticks) numerous times, trying to catch him doing manual labor, but have not been able to do so.

In my own family my wife has a cousin in his 50's, who has never actually worked a real job in his life (worked for a couple years making pizza in his brother's shop), and RETIRED last year. An immigrant from Italy, he apparently found out something about the SS disability system early on, and has been on the dole for about his entire adult life. His daughter got married in September in a $40,000 extraviganza. His wife works as a part-time bartender, so maybe that's the source of their money. They live in a $350,000 house in the suburbs.

The impression these professionals have is that there is a growing group of people who have simply chosen to exploit our various loose and generous disability possibilities, and with our cultural values moving the way they are, it is almost impossible to put a stop to it. As long as they can find a doctor who is willing to write that they are "still" disabled, the hands of the WC insurers and others are basically tied.

Is this a growing phenomenon or just me hearing of a bunch of them around the same time?

[rubato]

Some people are disposed by their characters to immediately believe all stories which 'prove' that people are all corrupt and wicked and will repeat such stories without ever trying to find meaningful evidence which would support or disprove the idea.

Others hear such stories and say "well, that could be true, or it could be just another gassbag misanthrope spouting off. Let's see if there is some data".

Oh look:

http://www.disabilitystatistics.org/rep ... ence#table

From 1981 to the present the percent who report a disability has gone from 7.5% to 8% with no change in the last 20 years. In many of the last 20 years it was 7.4 or 7.5% suggesting that it is mostly 'scatter' in the data. (MOE +/- 0.2%)

In my personal experience, most people want to work and are trying to get back after an injury.

yrs,
rubato

[Rick]

Nobody is going to start a new project this close to the holiday season.

Bring it up again after the New Year.

You should know that by now...

[rubato]

Project? Wha?

[Rick]

Project? Wha?

I was responding to Dgs, sorry...

[dgs49]

If you look at the NUMBER of persons "reporting a work limitation," it has gone up by half since 1990, which far outstrips the population growth. Whether this statistic captures everyone on workmen's comp, short and LT disability, SS disability, and other related compensated disability is not clear. It has been reported that "mainstreaming" mental patients over the past 40 years has contributed greatly to the increase in homelessness, as the basic strategy was to move them out of the looney bins and onto welfare. For better or for worse, this leads to additional large numbers of people not working and on the dole.

I don't know what the real numbers are, and have only mentioned and heard a few anecdotes. Those who see it every day believe that gaming the system is becoming more common.

Most of the people I work with and interact with are keen to get back to work, and have more problems with coming back too soon than with relaxing around the house for too long, but then my personal radar screen does not reflect a random sampling of the population.

[Andrew D]

It has been reported that "mainstreaming" mental patients over the past 40 years has contributed greatly to the increase in homelessness, as the basic strategy was to move them out of the looney bins and onto welfare. For better or for worse, this leads to additional large numbers of people not working and on the dole.

Huh?

They were working and not on the dole when they were in the "looney bins"?

[Gob]

Coincidentally, from today's BBC;

People should be signed off for long-term sickness by an independent assessment service not GPs, a government-backed review says.

The review into dealing with long-term sickness at work also suggests tax breaks for firms which employ people who suffer from long-term conditions.

It is estimated the moves would mean 20% of the people currently on sickness absence would return to work.

Around 300,000 people a year are absent from work due to long-term sickness.

The review also calls for a new government backed job-brokering service, to find work for people cannot stay in their current job because of their condition.

A survey suggested 77% of GPs had admitted they signed people off sick for reasons other than their physical health, the report authors told the BBC.

The government asked Prof Carol Black and the former head of the British Chambers of Commerce David Frost to consider radical changes to deal with the human and financial cost of sickness absence in the workplace.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15801515

[BoSoxGal]

I returned to work three days after my first surgery last year - my clients needed me. The early return and some poor choices I made about exerting myself likely led to my second surgery three months later. I returned to work ten days after that one, and went into felony trial a few days later.

If I ever won the lottery the kind of work I do would change, but not my working. I hated being unemployed.

As to the Italian cousin with the $350k house and daughter's $40k wedding; that person is not living that way by milking SSDI. Maybe a private disability plan? I've worked with lots of folks on SSDI and they do not cash big fat checks every month.

Maybe he's in the waste management business?

[rubato]

"Productive labor is the true nature of Mankind" Karl Marx

It is a profound truth that people are happier when they have a useful job and most people will struggle to have one.

yrs,
rubato

[dgs49]

Interesting that Marx never had a job or ran a business in his life, and relied on the charity of rich friends to live.

It's easy to say that "people are happier when they have a useful job," but it's simply not true. We are raised to either buy into that notion or not. For those who have been raised to work, unemployment can be torture, but everyone ain't like that.

When my wife was a trust officer for a large bank she constantly encountered people who had never worked a day in their lives (due to a trust fund), and were determined not ever to have to undergo that indignity in the future. When they complained that they were having difficulty maintaining their lifestyle on what the Trust was paying out (a frequent complaint), it never even occurred to them that they might try doing something productive to earn extra cash. The "solution" as they saw it was to either "demand" that the investments change to generate more income, or to take a one-time disbursement to fund some extravigance (e.g., a long, exotic "vacation"). Doctors' widows and children were a particular pain in that regard.

At the other end of the spectrum, we have people who have been on the dole for generations (measured at about 15 calendar years), and whose only hope of improvement is some new or modified government program that might throw them a few more bones.

As for Worker's Comp, I haven't seen the data recently, but I recall reading many stories over the years citing a problem in state and local governments with much, much higher rates of job-related injuries than in the private sector, and durations of disability that ran much longer.

[rubato]

Interesting that Marx never had a job or ran a business in his life, and relied on the charity of rich friends to live.
... "

And even so, he worked amazingly hard to develop his ideas in writing.

Have you read anything he has written? Anything?



yrs,
rubato

[Scooter]

So people who write for a living do not work. Someone should create a thread to capture all of these Daveisms, they could fill a book.

[quaddriver]

The point being, those who write for a living (and nothing else, ever) are in poor position to speak about economic or government themes. Yanno, like the democratic party....

[Beer Sponge]

So people who write for a living do not work. Someone should create a thread to capture all of these Daveisms, they could fill a book.

But who would write it? I mean, in their spare time after working?

[BoSoxGal]

[dgs49]

Quick review:

Karl Marx was quoted as saying that "Productive labor is the true nature of mankind."

I pointed out that Karl Marx never engaged in "productive labor" in his own life. Even he would not have described his writing as "productive labor," as is clear from his own writings. He was speaking of factory labor, farm work, or other efforts producing goods and services for wages.

As for Scooter's post, Karl Marx did not write "for a living." His writings generated a bit of income during his life, but never enough to support himself.

Parenthetically I will add that my son is a free-lance journalist who works his ass off "for a living." I never said - and I would never say - that someone who writes for a living "does not work."

Scooter, you are an asshole. You will forgive my gratuitous insult. It is your stock in trade.

[Scooter]

And yet here you are like a Pavlovian dog, sniffing this asshole...

[loCAtek]

It's dgs49's thread, he's addressing everyone who replies to it, not just you.