... Just three years ago, in July 2015, the Obama administration warned
that the [Social Security Disability Insurance] program’s reserves were so low that it might not be able to
cover expected benefits in 2016. Now, the trustees say the program will
be solvent until 2032. Declining disability insurance receipts may be
one reason that labor force participation
by “prime-age” workers, those between the ages of 25 and 54, has ticked
up from 80.6 percent in September 2015 to 81.8 in May 2018. ...
What does not explain the decline is any structural reform to the
program. The fact that disability rolls decline when the economy
improves, and vice versa, reflects no intended purpose of disability
insurance, because there’s no intrinsic connection between macroeconomic
conditions and the likelihood of becoming disabled. Instead, SSDI has
functioned as de facto long-term unemployment insurance, fraught with
inefficiencies and perverse incentives. In particular, SSDI’s rules
require that applicants be unable to engage in any significant paid
work, giving them every incentive to cease working completely to qualify
and to avoid rehabilitation — that is, to exit the labor force for
good. The rules need to change so applicants face something other than a
binary choice between work and benefits, perhaps by allowing benefits
to phase out gradually as earnings from employment rise. ...
Sure, convert the earnings test from a cliff to a slope but the subtext of this editorial is that there really is no such thing as disability or, perhaps I should say, "disability." I mean, what more proof do you need than Stephen Hawking that anybody who wants to work can work? Those people on Social Security "disability" aren't really disabled. They're just lazy and a lot of them are drug addicts. Not only is Social Security disability not needed but it is an evil program that destroys lives by paying benefits for sloth. Needless to say, that's not my view but it is the view of those who believe that Social Security disability is the "soft underbelly" of Social Security. Take out Social Security disability and you're one step closer to the holy grail of the right wing, abolishing Social Security itself.