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发帖数: 29846 | 1 Number of Americans Paid Not to Work Growing Faster than Number of Taxpayers
by Chuck DeVore
The federal government announced the new, official unemployment rate this
week: 8.1 percent, down from 8.2 percent. Far fewer jobs were added in April
than expected--115,000--so the official rate declined slightly because more
people stopped looking for work.
The workforce participation rate is now at its lowest rate in 30 years, with
63.6 percent of adults who could work actually working.
When people can’t find work, they adjust. Families spend less. Children
move in with parents. Some people seek additional training to improve their
marketable skills. And some former workers apply for various forms of public
assistance, such as unemployment compensation, food stamps, or welfare. But
since the historic welfare reforms of 1996, welfare for able-bodied adults
is generally limited to five years (except in California, where they’ve
always sought an exemption). This appears to have caused a shift to other
forms of public assistance.
The number of Americans drawing checks from the federal government via
Social Security’s Supplemental Security Income Program swelled from 7.0
million in FY 2007 to an estimated 8.0 million in FY 2012, with the growth
rate in the program doubling at the onset of the recession. This program is
expected to cost taxpayers about $52 billion in FY 2012.
Similarly, the number of Americans suddenly finding themselves “disabled”
enough to receive Disability Insurance benefits from Social Security is
projected to swell to 11 million in FY 2012, with applications rising more
than 5 percent in 2010 alone.
Since the formal end of the recession in June 2009, the number of new people
entering the Disability Insurance Program--4.7 million--is double the
growth in non-farm payrolls--2.3 million.
In 1975, 1.33 percent of working age adults received Disability Insurance
payments from the U.S. Today, the rate of officially disabled Americans of
working age has soared to 7.1 percent.
Given all the advancements in workplace safety and ergonomic design, are
Americans really 5.4 times more likely to be truly disabled than they were
37 years ago? Or, are government incentives not to work, combined with an
economy slowed by overregulation, making us “disabled”? |
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