From Talk Poverty:
Earlier this month, The Washington Post ran a front-page story about Social Security disability benefits in rural counties, followed this past Sunday by an editorial calling for a wholesale restructuring of Social Security Disability Insurance. ...
The Post’s central assertion—flanked by an interactive map—was that as many as one-third of working-age adults in rural communities are living on monthly disability checks. But the data analysis supporting this argument doesn’t hold up. ...
In a sidebar to the article, the Post says they used publicly available county-level data from the Social Security Administration (SSA) to count “every working-age person who receives benefits through the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program or both.” But the Social Security Administration doesn’t publish the data needed for that calculation. In an email response to our request for these data, the SSA confirmed that these data are “not readily available.”
The Center for American Progress also reached out to the Post to ask about their data. The Post confirmed in an email exchange that they did indeed rely on publicly available data, and identified the specific reports, tables, and figures they used.
We tried to replicate their analysis, and here’s why their numbers are flat-out wrong....
The analysis overcounts working-age people receiving disability benefits by nearly 500,000. The SSA doesn’t publish county-level data on SSDI beneficiaries in the age range the Post defines as “working age” (18 to 64). SSA’s OASDI Beneficiaries by State and County report does provide county-level data on SSDI beneficiaries (Table 4), including disabled worker beneficiaries. However, of the 8,909,430 disabled worker SSDI beneficiaries whom the table breaks down by county, 472,080—or about 5 percent—are age 65 or older. Including these older disabled workers would inflate the share of working-age people with disabilities.
It overcounts “disabled adult children” by about 750,000. About 1 million SSDI beneficiaries are disabled adult children (DACs)—people whose disability onset occurred before age 22 and who are insured for SSDI benefits based on a parent’s work record. Since the Post claims to count working-age people receiving SSDI, SSI, or both, they need to include working-age DACs. But—contrary to the Post’s data sidebar—there are no data available on working-age DACs at the county level. ...
It can’t accurately adjust for double-counting the 1.3 million working-age people who receive both SSDI and SSI (a.k.a. “concurrent beneficiaries”). ...
It’s missing data for a whopping 106 counties. Mostly because of small population size, SSA doesn’t publish county-level data on SSI beneficiaries for 106 counties. This would be problematic for any county-level analysis. But it’s especially notable given that the Post’s article focuses on rural counties—as some 97 of the counties with missing data are rural. It’s unclear how the Post treats these counties in their analysis. ...
12 comments:
Unfortunately, the public and policymakers read the faulty editorial in the Washington Post and don't see the corrective article in Talk Poverty. Mulvaney was spouting off again recently in an MSNBC interview that he's trying to talk Trump into cutting SSDI, saying that it has turned into a long term unemployment program. WaPo is not helping - thought they were supposed to be on our side.
Lol, more and more it's clear that--more than bad journalists--too many major publicans suffer from just terrible editing. What editor with such crappy understanding of statistics and data allowed this garbage to be printed? Any moron in stats 101 could rip this analysis apart, yet the Post published it proudly as if it had uncovered some grand problem.
It's no wonder so many people completely eschew the mainstream media; it's full of so many idiotic chuckleheads with high pedigree backgrounds that just insist they and other elites know what's up while being just astoundingly wrong all the time.
Alternative Facts.
I loved the NPR hit job a few years ago that insinuated claimant's bar goes in and just intimidates ALJ's into paying. This has not been my experience at all. Most ALJ's I've been in front of want to do their jobs correctly and most are at least making attempts to be fair. However, I have not seen any that can just be rolled over. These articles are hit jobs and propaganda pieces that don't even attempt to provide a balanced perspective. They certainly never mention the ALJ outliers who want to deny everything. Also, they are basically attacking every social program in existence at the same time. Purely part of a radical right wing political agenda. At some point impoverishing, marginalizing, and neglecting our citizenry will have severe blowback.
It is the Washington Post. What do you expect?
Thanks for being so on top of this and exposing all the bad journalism out there when it comes to the Washington Post. This reminds me of that article their online version did a few years ago that made it appear that there were all these Puerto Rican Non-English Speaking Doctors and Nurses getting disability.
There are lies, damn lies and statistics.
WApo is really a voice of moderation. If you folks have problem with it then wait until the Altright, Mulvaney and the Freedom Caucus have their say. What is really keeping them in check is our Emperor's kins and the so-called "Democrats" (Kushner, his WIFE-AKA lovely princess, Cohn) who have 2020 and beyond in mind. Otherwise SSDI is on the chopping block like much else.
www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/04/13/trump-can-start-cutting-the-federal-workforce-right-now/
I am disappointed in the Washington Post. I would have expected better. I do know some in our area (rural) who grew up in the fields breathing cotton dust and chemicals so by the time they reached their fifties, they were dragging around oxygen tanks and pushing walkers. They had to get to that point to get anything.
Take social security security disability away from white, high school educated folks who have worked hard labor until their bodies have started playing out in their late forties and fifties at your own risk. This is native scots irish Trump voting America you are talking about and it is one of their main life lines. I heard the Donald said no cuts to social security period because he said he wouldn't. If this man is any kind of smart politician he won't let the Ayn Rand/Paul Ryan fanatics influence him on this. Warning to republican party: you start taking their stuff away and you will see how surface their republican beliefs really are. They are no longer democrats only because they are not eating dirt on the farm anymore. Attack your base--go for it! Better stick with your dog whistle tactics and talking bad about the other. These people aren't as stupid as you are taking them for. You f them over and they might be voting for Bernie Sanders next time. Two mile lines to get into his events in Oklahoma and he can't even pronounce the name of the state correctly and the crowd thought it was charming and funny. Take their social security away. Do it!
Most "disabled adult children" (DACs) are paid out of the OASI trust fund. They are dependents of retirees.
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