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Comment by jeffreyrogers | Hacker News Reader

The idea that rising disability is a cause of declining labor force participation is interesting, and fits in with anecdotal data from what family members in medicine have told me. They basically phrase it as: If you're uneducated and poor, why would you work a low paying job with little hope of advancement when you could go on disability and collect a similar amount of money without working?

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To be fair, many of these people are actually disabled. It's just that previously they could work. Like the article says, their managers cared about them and and had the capacity to let them take lower-impact positions that they were capable of doing.

We don't appreciate how difficult it can be to employ these marginally capable workers. Keeping these people on staff at a small company raises health and operational insurance costs pretty dramatically, so it can be hard to justify keeping them on staff, even if you wanted to.

Disability is also pretty difficult to get, despite how the news makes it out to be easy. My father had multiple heart attacks and cancer, and he's still fighting to get on disability. And when he does, it will take years to come into full-effect.

I agree partly, but from what my family members have told me it seems that some people are gaming the system for their own benefit. They've also told me that people who truly would benefit from being on disability (like your father) often have a hard time getting on it.

(Not in the US.) My partner worked a factory job for many years. They used to have a "specials" group (unofficial name for them), who would be taken on and they would be trained to do just one job, but they would learn it and perform it to a very high standard, day in and day out for many years. They would become very fast at it, and were paid quite well with regard to the average wage in the area.

Unfortunately, they were also the first laid off when automation was installed, and afterwards they were competing for few jobs at the same (regional) low wages with "normal" people.

It's an easy thing to fear. It's another thing to actually demonstrate this is happening in a measurable, widespread fashion.

FWIW most of the people I've met on disability probably deserved to be on there, including people I've met with severe mental illnesses. I'd posit there's more of an empathy gap here than anything.

You need more, less-biased samples!

Well, the proportion of people on disability is certainly increasing as the linked article demonstrates. My anecdotal data all indicates that some of the increase is due to bogus disability claims. The SSC article also makes this claim. It's not an issue I have any particular interest in, so I haven't looked too hard for alternative explanations but given the lack of readily available alternative explanations (anecdotal or not) for the rise in people on disability I think we can say the probability is high that a non-negligible proportion of those on disability do not meet at least the spirit of the criteria for disability benefits.

Most of the patient populations my relatives are referring to are poor, inner-city minorities, who the average HN reader is unlikely to encounter in day-to-day life, so it's entirely possible for the average HN reader to only meet legitimately disabled people while still having a sizable fraction of people on disability collecting disability for bogus reasons.

By the way, I think it's socially undesirable for people who are not really disabled to go on disability, but for many of them it is a rational response to their circumstances.

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