5.4 Million Join Disability Rolls Under Obama

[texdav]

It started when the defintion of disable was changed from unable to do substantial work to not beig able to do suited work. Then ;of course its climbed alot since this recession where many have loss hope and filed for it.Its just part of the participation rate of thsoe who have given up for one reason or another amoung working age adults. Its I believe at 44% of workig age adult that have as its called satdown. Its the main reason we could have less created jobs than workers entering work age and still have unemployment numbers drop.

[Frank DeForrest]

So long as doctors are subsidized (rewarded$$$) to certify patients (ahem) too inured to work, the circle of welfare will continue to grow.

[stillkit]

Well, well. Here's something interesting.

In the story provided by that link, you can click on a highlighted text which says "the number of new enrollees." That takes you to this Social Security site:

Social Security award data

Using the search feature at the left, you can find the data on new awards for every year going back to 1975. When you you hit "go," and the next page loads, the number you're looking for in relation to this thread is the first one in the bottom row of numbers on the chart which comes up, just beyond "Total DI Awards." See it?

It works like this: Select a year (say...2010), and ending month (Dec) and the number of months in a period (12). When the next page loads, you'll see the total number of new Disability Insurance awards for that year. (1,683,115).

So...I checked out 2009, 2010, 2011 and the first 3 months of 2012. That's Obama's time in office. I totaled them all up and got this number: 5,296,109 new awards of SS disability.

To compare, I entered 2008, 2007, 2006 and the last 3 months of 2005. That's the comparable period of the Bush administration. Once again, I totaled them all and came up with this number: 4,764,447 new awards of SS disability.

The difference in the last 39 months of the Bush administration and the first 39 months of the Obama administration is: 531,662 awards less during the Bush period. And, that's out of a grand total of 10,060,556.

The difference between the two periods is a mere 5.28%.

Still want to make the case that this is a liberal problem or purely of Obama's making?

[pghquest]

Originally Posted by Drewcifer

I wonder if this has anything to do with the aging of the workforce. People become more fragile as they age.

Not everything is "those damn libruls".

People aging isnt new.