Disabled, or just desperate? Rural Americans turn to disability as jobs dry up

Disabled, or just desperate? Rural Americans turn to disability as jobs dry up(washingtonpost.com)

23 points by 127001brewer 9 years ago | 5 comments

celias 9 years ago |

Here's the 6 part NPR series Unfit For Work from 2013 http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/

with an accompanying This American Life broadcast http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/490/t... and

Is disability a form of "basic income"?

orionblastar 9 years ago | |

You pay a FICA tax that goes into your social security fund. If you go on disability based on how much FICA you paid it determines how much disability you get.

I went on disability in 2003 and I have physical and mental illnesses that are well documented. I was discriminated at by coworkers and management when I had jobs and in a Post911 world they do medical background checks to screen out the mentally ill.

People who are contractors get paid with a 1099 and if they ho on disability they aren't paid much.

Disability I'd not be able to get by if not for my wife being a nurse. I don't know why people think that people on disability are rich, we are not, we are poor. I'd earn more money if I got a full time job at a retail store or baking pizzas or going back into programming if they'd allow me. But society rejects us and forces us to go homeless or go on disability.

It is not basic income; however, but it is a good start.

I have problems with social skills and speaking communicating, etc. I can't hide my illness.

When they talk about disability they think of the blibd or the deaf or someone in a wheelchair but never the mentally ill. I've never been arrested, never did drugs, I am not violent, and against these mentally ill people that do public shootings and end up in the news media to give them the attention they want.

Disability is hard to get off it, your doctor has to clear you for work first and then vocational rehabilitation tries to find you a job. You might be making sandwiches or something because companies don't want to hire the mentally ill for programming jobs.

alistproducer2 9 years ago |

This one of many articles existing the abuse of the disability system. Where's the call to cut the waste, fraud, and abuse?

LorenPechtel 9 years ago | |

The problem is companies will hire the most able-bodied first. Marginal people like the ones in this article will be the last to be hired--and that means in a less than robust economy they simply won't be hired, period.

As far as I'm concerned our definition of disability is wrong. If your maladies mean nobody is willing to hire you, you're disabled regardless of whether there's a job that you could be at least marginally productive at.