Social Security Disability Abuse Story on NPR

[Andrew Joiner]

Sad story:
http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work

You can listen to it to as well:http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/490/trends-with-benefits?act=0

Sure many people deserve SSDI SSI, but the abuse is growing.
Not only do taxpayers pay to support people who fake disability, we pay lawyers who specialize in getting it for them!


Hopefully we can discuss this without getting to political.

[Tom Fischer]

Yes, that is a problem.
And I don't know why ice cream, potato chips, cookies and chocolate candy are paid for under the Food Stamp (SNAP) program.
The "N" in SNAP (http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap) stands for nutrition.
Does not compute.

[Matt Marsh]

I just listened to this via podcast yesterday. Another one of several things dragging our country into the cesspool! Fewer and fewer people left to pay for more and more!

[David Weaver]

It's an enormous problem, the biggest problem is the person making the decision about who is and isn't disabled isn't the person paying for the benefits.

And the fact that after a given age, it seems like they just let people through as early retirement.

I see the data side of it (as in i can see obvious abuse, esp. if I come into employer data and a whole bunch of relatives in the same group are all on SS disability), and my wife sees the patient side of it (as a physical therapist specializing in wound care) where people always tell her there's no way they're going to try to go back to work when they make as much on disability as they would if they were working. They're on SS disability, medicaid, etc. and they are completely noncompliant as patients (as in they show up, but they don't do what they're supposed to do as part of their regular visits. Instead, they're showing up at the clinic 3 times a week just because access brings them there for free, and someone else is paying the bills). That's not all of her patients, but she always gets one or two a day like that.

[David Weaver]

Yes, that is a problem.
And I don't know why ice cream, potato chips, cookies and chocolate candy are paid for under the Food Stamp (SNAP) program.
The "N" in SNAP (http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap) stands for nutrition.
Does not compute.

I don't know about this one, if kids are involved and their parents can't deliver the goods, I can't think of a reason to make them go without junk food. I couldn't do it. Plus, the junk food is cheaper per calorie, anyway.

[Tom Fischer]

I don't know about this one, if kids are involved and their parents can't deliver the goods, I can't think of a reason to make them go without junk food. I couldn't do it. Plus, the junk food is cheaper per calorie, anyway.

Yes, but ... what about the exploding obesity problem. Little kids have eyes. They can see that the government is buying junk food for them, so why is it really so bad??

I turned 60 this past year. My Primary care physician told me (yelled at me) to lose weight. So I lost 35 pounds in 6 months, just dropping any and all junk food (+ beer too). Eagle eye on the carb count.

Just seems counterproductive to condition kids that this stuff isn't so bad, and at the same time have the constant background drumbeat about the "obese nation".

[David Weaver]

I think you'd just find people doing an easy end-around on food stamps or trading something to get the junk food if they really want it.

The only way you'll get society thinner as a whole is to either charge them for not being thin or to take benefits away for not being thin.

[Brian Tymchak]

Interesting article. Thanks for sharing. I don't doubt that there is abuse in the system. Anytime there is free money, there will soon be fraud. I read the article somewhat quickly, but I question some of the conclusions.

For instance, it seems that the author is trying to correlate some or all of the problem to legislation passed in 1996 under the Clinton administration. But the data in the provided graphs seem to indicate that the problem really accelerated in the 1990-1992 period so I question that correlation. Also, although the disability numbers have steadily increased over the long haul, they were flat for several years after the Welfare legislation passed. I think there are other factors that the author does not account for. For instance, general population growth. Simple logic - more people in the country, then more will be on disability. Also, the US growth rate accelerated in 1989-1992. (source: tradingeconomics.com). Maybe this was a contributing factor to the surge in disability claims in the early '90s? Without normalizing the data in anyway, the author does a disservice to the topic.

[David Weaver]

Interesting article. Thanks for sharing. I don't doubt that there is abuse in the system. Anytime there is free money, there will soon be fraud. I read the article somewhat quickly, but I question some of the conclusions.

But the data in the provided graphs seem to indicate that the problem really accelerated in the 1990-1992 period so I question that correlation.

That acceleration is due to a poor economy. Any time the economy is bad (or more specifically the job market), people who fear losing their jobs focus their efforts on getting on disability instead. It makes the changes in enrollment due to policy changes difficult, and in order to get a clearer picture, you'd have to normalize the data to adjust that out of it.

I'd imagine you'd see a spike in the chart starting 2001 or so for a few years and then again at starting 2008 (I didn't look at it, just supposing what it might look like).

[David Weaver]

http://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/dibStat.html

There are a couple of interesting things that can be gleaned from this data.

* Enrollment has nearly doubled in 14 years, population has increased from 275MM to 315MM during the same period. Because of the aging profile, the effective 15% increase probably doesn't quite apply to the working population (we're older now, and a lower % are probably working). So, enrollment has increased 88%, and probably only 10% of that is due to the size of the labor force. Though, some other portion would also be attributable to the increased average worker age (disability rates are much higher at later ages - debate about that can be had regarding whether or not it's due more to the granting of benefits or actual disabilities, it's some of both I'd think)
* look at the increase in application percentages when the economy is bad. It's clear there is an "industry" effect that is driven by instructing people to apply for disability benefits or helping them do it, because the % of disability approvals is a lower percentage despite the fact that the enrollment is increasing at a rate much faster than population growth.

The total enrollment is bad enough, but when you look at the underlying volume of applications, which is much greater in growth than the enrollment numbers, it suggests a real problem. Especially when more and more disabilities are coming from workplaces that are less likely to leave someone disabled than they would've been 20 or 30 years ago.

[Tom Fischer]

I think the way it was done several decades ago (maybe the '50s and '60's) was to give out large "#10" cans of mashed potatoes, string beans, etc. I saw some when I was a kid.
In that way, anyone who was really hungry got what they needed. None of this fancy debit card stuff, ready made for abuse.

Have heard stories that some Food Stamp money goes to buy alcohol, cigs even gambling. That shouldn't be.

[Brian Elfert]

Getting Social Security disability isn't as easy as some make it sound. A friend of mine was no properly diagnosed with Lyme disease about 15 years ago. It took a decade or so for a doctor to finally determine he has Lyme disease. By that point he had all kinds of joint pain and such and had to quit working. He applied for Social Security disability and got turned down. He had to hire a lawyer to appeal and won after several years.

I've read that a big part of the reason for increased disability claims comes from folks who lost a job due to the economy and are filing disability to try to get some income.

The only way food stamp money goes towards gambling, cigs, and the like is through stores that do illiegal things like pay cash for food stamps. They'll pay maybe 50 cents on the dollar and then claim they sold more food through food stamps than they really did.

[David Weaver]

I think a lot of those news story purchases have been stomped out when they are observed (cigarettes, withdrawals at casino atms, etc).

But what I do see (I live in the city, and we have a pretty healty wic ATM card population here) is that if I go to a convenience store in the morning, I see people using their cards to buy stuff at a convenience store all the time. I don't think that's right. If someone buys junk food, I don't care so much, but they should have to spend others' money a little more wisely than a place that charges double for it.

(my grandfather waited in line for cheese way back when. I think he could've bought his own, but i'm sure as a farmer, he met the income threshhold to be eligible and he was thrifty to the max and never would pass up something free).

[David Weaver]

Getting Social Security disability isn't as easy as some make it sound. A friend of mine was no properly diagnosed with Lyme disease about 15 years ago. It took a decade or so for a doctor to finally determine he has Lyme disease. By that point he had all kinds of joint pain and such and had to quit working. He applied for Social Security disability and got turned down. He had to hire a lawyer to appeal and won after several years.

I've read that a big part of the reason for increased disability claims comes from folks who lost a job due to the economy and are filing disability to try to get some income.

How old was the friend? From what I've seen in data, the heavy fraud seems to start around age 53 or 54, and a lot of it seems to be on the job "injuries" that are hard to diagnose but easy to communicate to the SSA. At the same time, I've seen and heard a lot of stories of people who are truly disabled well under that age having trouble getting benefits because they don't quite fit what the system wants to see.

[Curt Harms]

But I know there's a whole culture knowing "the right things to say" to get a free ride. And these are 20-somethings. I wonder if this contributes to the Social Security fund insolvency issue? :rolleyes:

[Andrew Joiner]

Getting Social Security disability isn't as easy as some make it sound. A friend of mine was no properly diagnosed with Lyme disease about 15 years ago. It took a decade or so for a doctor to finally determine he has Lyme disease. By that point he had all kinds of joint pain and such and had to quit working. He applied for Social Security disability and got turned down. He had to hire a lawyer to appeal and won after several years.

I've read that a big part of the reason for increased disability claims comes from folks who lost a job due to the economy and are filing disability to try to get some income.

.

Did your friend have to pay the lawyer? Lawyers are available for free. Well not free, I mean free to those who want/need disability.


This is from the NPR story:
--------------------------
When he started in 1979, Binder represented fewer than 50 clients. Last year, his firm represented 30,000 people. Thirty thousand people who were denied disability appealed with the help of Charles Binder's firm. In one year. Last year, Binder and Binder made $68.7 million in fees for disability cases.
Who is making the case for the other side? Who is defending the government's decision to deny disability?
Nobody.
------------------------------
So taxpayers are PAYING the lawyers who specialize in getting disability!

[Eric DeSilva]

But what I do see (I live in the city, and we have a pretty healty wic ATM card population here) is that if I go to a convenience store in the morning, I see people using their cards to buy stuff at a convenience store all the time. I don't think that's right. If someone buys junk food, I don't care so much, but they should have to spend others' money a little more wisely than a place that charges double for it.

It is hard to pass judgment. Someone on support may not have a car to get to the local supermarket. While public transportation options may exist, they may not have the money for that either--or the time to be able to do it.

[Eric DeSilva]

Getting Social Security disability isn't as easy as some make it sound.

Agreed. I used to do some SSDI cases pro bono for a local shelter, and found that there were plenty of cases that should never have been turned down, but for the inability of the applicants to adequately express themselves in a way that SSA understood. In other cases, I'll never understand why particular cases were denied--it was almost like they were denied merely on the basis that the applicant was unlikely to appeal.

[David Weaver]

It is hard to pass judgment. Someone on support may not have a car to get to the local supermarket. While public transportation options may exist, they may not have the money for that either--or the time to be able to do it.

It's generally free (PT) here when you have limited income.

[David Weaver]

Agreed. I used to do some SSDI cases pro bono for a local shelter, and found that there were plenty of cases that should never have been turned down, but for the inability of the applicants to adequately express themselves in a way that SSA understood. In other cases, I'll never understand why particular cases were denied--it was almost like they were denied merely on the basis that the applicant was unlikely to appeal.

This is the real shame of the whole situation. While there are gobs of people on it that should be working somewhere, or trying to, people who are truly disabled are left out. The former outweighs the latter by a large amount, but that doesn't make those in the latter minority feel any better.

[Brian Elfert]

Did your friend have to pay the lawyer? Lawyers are available for free. Well not free, I mean free to those who want/need disability.


I'm not sure if he paid the lawyer or not.

[Mike Henderson]

My experience is that disability has gotten harder to obtain. I know people who got disability 40 years ago on very weak situations (I know them and knew what they claimed was wrong with them). Later, people with the same problems were denied disability. Given the financial problems of social security, I would expect pressure would come down from the upper managers to limit the grants of disability.

I do agree that when people lose their jobs, especially if they're in their 50's where getting another job is difficult, they will do almost anything to survive, including faking disability. One way to reduce disability claims is to have a robust job market. I'm sure most people would rather work than fake disability (maybe not all, but most).

Mike

[Brian Elfert]

How old was the friend? From what I've seen in data, the heavy fraud seems to start around age 53 or 54, and a lot of it seems to be on the job "injuries" that are hard to diagnose but easy to communicate to the SSA. At the same time, I've seen and heard a lot of stories of people who are truly disabled well under that age having trouble getting benefits because they don't quite fit what the system wants to see.

He was in his 50s when his disability occurred, but it has to do with getting Lyme disease rather than old age. He has documented proof of having Lyme disease. I know from being around him that is not faking the issue.

[David Weaver]

No, I'm not accusing him of faking it. It might be a parameters thing with the SSA, I don't doubt that he's a lot more disabled than a lot of the ss disability members. I have seen people still getting on it lately, but they are with either families or employee groups that I would say take getting onto disability to a professional level.

The trouble with the "professionals" is how do you prove that they're not disabled? You have to catch them doing something that a disabled person would not be doing, and quite often they know both how to get on disability and how to stay out of trouble.

The conflict comes (that I see on a regular basis) when combined benefit plans make not working more lucrative than working. The ss disability is sort of seen then as a right as an early retirement bridge benefit.

Not a lot different than the W. VA pneumoconiosis benefits - where there truly are and have been a lot of people who are disabled because of being miners. But everyone applies for it and feels like it's a right like a pension benefit, not a conditional benefit. And the older single guys will often then find a young spouse for a financial marriage - one who knows that they'll have lifetime benefits once the former miner becomes deceased.

I see these things at the data level, not on a personal anecdotal level. Once you see them at the data level, it's bizarre. Really totally bizarre, but there's nothing you can really do about a lot of it either because of legal protection of some benefits that go along with disability, or because of the simple fact that if you do take the benefits away from the free riders, you'll have to take them away from the legitimately hurt folks, too.

[Brad Sperr]

I've only listened to about half of the story, but I have to say that I'm not impressed so far. I normally enjoy This American Life segments because they are insightful and eye-opening, but this segment just comes across as uninformed and specious. Speaking as a lawyer who has handled several Social Security disability claims (before I get jumped on, I work for a non-profit so I don't collect fees from disability clients), the writer of this segment would have benefited from a basic understanding of the benefit system. "Disability" is not a "nebulous" concept as the narrator of the segment claims, but is defined by literally thousands of regulations, rulings, and manuals. The narrator of the segment responds with disbelief when a doctor commented that people who are unable to work should receive disability benefits, and expected that recipients should have some sort of tragic back-story, but the ability to work and earn a "substantial gainful" wage is essentially the standard applied by the Social Security Administration. Whether or not someone is able to work at this level is a determination that the Social Security Administration makes in consideration of numerous factors, including a claimant's age, impairments and prior work history. Disability claims are evaluated by numerous professionals, including laywers, doctors and vocational experts, before being approved, so the implication in the story that claims are approved willy-nilly is absurd.

I also think that its worth addressing the segment's claim that no one ever comes off of disability benefits unless they die. The majority of all disability claims are reviewed periodically for medical improvement, and many claimants are removed from the system this way. The disability system also has inherent incentives that encourage claimants to return to work, even with a continuation of Medicare coverage, which was completely ignored in the segment. Of course, some of these issues may have been addressed in the second half of the story that I didn't listen to :rolleyes:.

[David Weaver]

Of course, it's a radio spot and not an audited 3 year study.

But the main point of the discussion here is still valid, there is no way that 8.9 million people are actually disabled by the regulatory standards. A lot of them just know enough to get through those regulations (either by help from someone else or by family knowledge - take a look at the White's (family name, not race) in west virginia). There's a documentary with them in it and one of the local attornies says "none of them work, they're never out of money, and their father knew more about the disability system than any attorney).

The trouble with that many parameters and regulations is that they're written to keep out free riders and to try to exclude game players. As games are played, more regulations are added. It becomes a system that lends itself to experts only, and the truly disabled can be excluded while the best at the game will always adapt.

[Andrew Joiner]

I normally enjoy This American Life segments because they are insightful and eye-opening, but this segment just comes across as uninformed and specious. Speaking as a lawyer who has handled several Social Security disability claims (before I get jumped on, I work for a non-profit so I don't collect fees from disability clients), the writer of this segment would have benefited from a basic understanding of the benefit system.

It's good to know a lawyer that not in it for the money.


I also think that its worth addressing the segment's claim that no one ever comes off of disability benefits unless they die. The majority of all disability claims are reviewed periodically for medical improvement, and many claimants are removed from the system this way. The disability system also has inherent incentives that encourage claimants to return to work, even with a continuation of Medicare coverage, which was completely ignored in the segment. Of course, some of these issues may have been addressed in the second half of the story that I didn't listen to :rolleyes:.

This study shows since about 2004 only 1% of recipients ever get off the program.http://iom.edu/~/media/Files/Activity%20Files/Aging/Mark%20Duggan.pdf

[David Weaver]

That's about 1% per year, or roughly the expectation of some percentage greater than that but less than 9% would have been terminated for medical reasons by now. SS Normal retirement age and death terminates a fair amount, too (far more).

[Mel Fulks]

That film about the Whites is pretty unusual. I thought ,at first ,that it was a 'mockumentary'.Its not.

[Andrew Joiner]

But the main point of the discussion here is still valid, there is no way that 8.9 million people are actually disabled by the regulatory standards. A lot of them just know enough to get through those regulations (either by help from someone else or by family knowledge - take a look at the White's (family name, not race) in west virginia). There's a documentary with them in it and one of the local attornies says "none of them work, they're never out of money, and their father knew more about the disability system than any attorney).


Yes, David. I just watched that a few days before the NPR story. I was amazed the family never worked.

D.Ray White was the master of disability abuse in that county. He taught his kids how to fake disability. Pretty obvious SS disability abuse plays a HUGE part in drug and alcohol abuse. The sad part is the kids watching and learning to this day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wild_and_Wonderful_Whites_of_We... (http://bounce.fatwallet.com/redirect/bounce.php?afsrc=1&mid=17646408&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FThe_Wi ld_and_Wonderful_Whites_of_West_Virginia)

[Eric DeSilva]

Possibly, but it may be a time issue too. I read an article once that opened my eyes quite a bit--sort of an average-day-for-middle-class-America v. average-day-for-minimum-wage-laborer. They went through a lot of things that you don't think about--washing your clothes at home versus going to a laundromat and having to spend several hours for clean clothes, direct deposit of checks v. having to go to a local check casher... I left understanding that it generally takes time and money to save money and a lot of the things that white collar/skilled labor income families take for granted aren't things that are available to minimum wage income families for a lot of reasons. In poorer neighborhoods, it takes longer and costs more to get certain products and do certain necessary things.

[David Weaver]

That film about the Whites is pretty unusual. I thought ,at first ,that it was a 'mockumentary'.Its not.

It's one of those things that you watch and afterwards, you are just sort of stunned.

[paul cottingham]

I don't know about American disability, but here in Canada, I have to re-qualify every year for my LTD. I was a total workaholic before I got sick, and still wish I could work, but there is no way. Despite that, my LTD provider (which is not indexed by the way) makes me requalify every year, despite the fact that my doctor says every year that I will never work again.
So it isn't simple, by any means.

[Jim Matthews]

My Primary care physician told me (yelled at me) to lose weight. So I lost 35 pounds in 6 months, just dropping any and all junk food (+ beer too).

No beer?
Just shoot me, now.

[Ben Hatcher]

I heard the program and thought it was pretty interesting. The point that I found the most interesting was that being on disability wasn't the same as saying that the person couldn't work, but that they were unable to do the work available in their area which they were qualified/able to do. I think that's an important distinction, though we could argue about what "can't" means. When I was a assembly line supervisor at an auto parts plant, I had several people on my line who couldn't do the job without serious pain in their hands and wrists. A few of the newer folks toughed it out and endured excruciating pain every day. Others, with more seniority, were able to get cushier jobs doing inspection work. All of them worked hard, but no amount of hard work was going to get them into that ultra-cushy management job that they could do into their golden years without debilitating pain.

I don't disagree that some amount of fraud is happening here. There's fraud everywhere from people not paying taxes on cash jobs to instances like the Whites. However, these are cases of anecdotal evidence. The dead beat who lies to get disability payments and the high school drop out who became a billionaire might be true stories, but they're not the norm. But nobody reads news stories about average people.

[David Weaver]

I don't think the deadbeat who lies to get disability payments is just a sparse person here or there who ends up on a documentary. It may not be a majority of the disability recipients but it's not a small number, either.

[Brad Sperr]

I don't think the deadbeat who lies to get disability payments is just a sparse person here or there who ends up on a documentary. It may not be a majority of the disability recipients but it's not a small number, either.

The Office of Inspector General for the Social Security Administration, which investigates allegations of benefit fraud and abuse, reports around 6214 investigative cases opened in its 2012 annual report (http://oig.ssa.gov/sites/default/files/semiannual/SARC%20FALL%202012.pdf) (as of the end of September) regarding the misuse of disability benefits. That's just over .06% of the 9.8 million disabled beneficiaries. That's a pretty small number.

[David Weaver]

Do you think they do an audit of the participants? If you don't really have a bad back, but you have a crooked doc who will vouch that you do, how would the SSA have any clue that you were a deadbeat?

Until you see this at a data level where employers have benefits that incent fraud and can't get rid of those benefits because of regulatory restrictions on cutbacks, you have no idea. The .06% number provides no significance at all other than that's the number of investigative cases opened. It's got no relation to the number of fraudulent users.

[Brad Sperr]

Do you think they do an audit of the participants? If you don't really have a bad back, but you have a crooked doc who will vouch that you do, how would the SSA have any clue that you were a deadbeat?

Until you see this at a data level where employers have benefits that incent fraud and can't get rid of those benefits because of regulatory restrictions on cutbacks, you have no idea. The .06% number provides no significance at all other than that's the number of investigative cases opened. It's got no relation to the number of fraudulent users.

OIG follows up on hundreds of thousands of allegations of fraud, according to their annual report, and only deemed a small portion of those as necessary to investigate. Even if we assume that the number of un-investigated cases of actual benefits fraud is ten times the amount of cases opened by OIG, which we have no reason to believe, we're still only talking about a fraction of a percent of all disability claims. I was hoping that you might start to question your assumptions about the majority of all disability benefit recipients being "deadbeats" in light of actual statistics, but it looks like that's not going to happen. Believe whatever you want to believe.

[David Weaver]

I'm not trying to offend you, but I don't think you understand what connection there is between the statistics you provided and the actual number of people who are on SSA disability that shouldn't be. The difference between you and I is that I work with employer data on a daily basis, and I see the levels of disability coverage that vary not with job hazards but instead correlated with employer benefits.

There is *no way* that an employer with similar job hazards compared to another employer should have disability rates that are 4 to 10 times as high just because their benefits are set up to provide no drop off in income upon attainment of disability status.

I'd like you to point out where I said the majority of individuals are deadbeats. You are extrapolating my comments to go further than they do. What I did say is that the number of deadbeats to anyone with any exposure to actual data (and not reports from limited investigations, etc) is a large number. It's not .06% or .6% of the enrolled. There is no way. I have seen employers who have the moral hazard benefit levels (no drop in income upon disability status, or more generous than that with continued accrual of retirement benefits) that have 1/3rd as many disableds as they do active employees. That is disableds generally between 53 and 65, where the SSA is much more lenient, it doesn't even include former disabled participants who are now retired.

Employers who don't provide any disability benefits like that generally will have a population with disableds in the range of mid single digits percentages at most, and even then when you review the data, you'll often find that a fair percentage of the disabled employees have the same last name (what would that suggest?).

The SSA can't do anything about the individuals in situations like that because those individuals are well aware of what it takes to attain disabled status and retain it, even if they could easily continue to do their jobs. Presumably the SSA does not coordinate with IRS employer filings where that data is shared, either, and they probably don't have the regulatory right to audit employee groups like I mentioned above. The employers usually know which individuals are disabled because of an accident or because of a true illness vs. the ones who were hired on, and who "became disabled" as soon as they had a right to benefits, as a result of an accident that nobody saw, like tripping off of a piece of equipment.

If the number of deadbeats was as small as you'd like to believe, there would not be such a large number and my wife would happen upon someone who used the line "I have no incentive to come off of disability and work because I'd make less money" rarely instead of commonly.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

David,

Do you have access to all employers data to back up your opinion or just a small view of one or a small number of employers data.

And data? Where are you getting your data......what is the source?

[Ben Hatcher]

I'd like you to point out where I said the majority of individuals are deadbeats. You are extrapolating my comments to go further than they do. What I did say is that the number of deadbeats to anyone with any exposure to actual data (and not reports from limited investigations, etc) is a large number. It's not .06% or .6% of the enrolled. There is no way.

What would an acceptable number be?

There's a great book titled How We Know What Isn't So. It explores all of the logic pitfalls in human reasoning. I highly recommend it to everyone.

[David Weaver]

David,

Do you have access to all employers data to back up your opinion or just a small view of one or a small number of employers data.

And data? Where are you getting your data......what is the source?

Ken, regional (and some national) employer data and employee status. The sample size of employees that I've had employer data for over a 13 year period is probably about three quarters of a million retirement plan participants across all risk levels.

Not a small sample size, and not a few small local employers.

When the benefits incent disablement, the rates are enormously higher than they are when they don't. None of the data that I have includes any of the impoverished individuals (who are not gainfully employed or were not gainfully employed at their transition to disabled status) who have incentive to learn to qualify for disability to bridge their existence to social security retirement age. (as in, I don't have data on folks like the descendants of jesco white).

All of that aside, I still would like a thorough explanation from anyone defending 0.6% or .06% magnitude numbers given the enrollment and HUGE increase in applications that have caused enrollment by over 80% when the working population has increased a small fraction of that, and at the same time, the job environment has gotten safer.

[David Weaver]

What would an acceptable number be?

There's a great book titled How We Know What Isn't So. It explores all of the logic pitfalls in human reasoning. I highly recommend it to everyone.

Unless you could personally interview individuals and their relatives and do it on a fairly large random sample, and with the trust of the individuals that your interview would not have them being audited, I have no clue how you would even find out. If it was that easy to sort out the fraudulent enrollees, the SSA would already have done it.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

David,

Data can be misleading in a lot of ways and the analysis of that data inaccurate as a result.

First there is what I call "The Good Ole Boy" effect. Businesses of like "political flavors" often utilize the services of the same companies while business of "Opposite poltical flavors" avoid those same services. Thus the data gathered and the analysis generated by that service company as a result would not be based upon a good broad spectrum and less accurate as a result. In short, the sampling is too small and too narrow to be accurate. While the numbers involved might appear big to an individual, it really would be extremely narrow compared to a view based on the larger scale.

I NEVER NEVER NEVER participate in telephone or mail polls for a reason. The individuals or organizations running polls are only interested in gathering data to support predisposed ideas and if they find the data doesn't support their ideas they will twist the results of the polls until it does.

If I were a pollster, I could get data to back any idea I chose simply by very selectively chosing the number and geographical location of my sampling. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure this out.

I pay little or no creed to "data" gathered in polls or in other assessments of data.

What is the sources of your data.....employers?....

Just like the rate of unemployment varies by region, I suspect you would find that misuse of SSD varies by region also.

Sources of data often taint the data too by selectively filtering their data.

I have little faith in "data" because data is often tainted.

[Mike Henderson]

If I were a pollster, I could get data to back any idea I chose simply by very selectively chosing the number and geographical location of my sampling. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure this out.
That is the absolute truth. Statistical data can be pretty accurate but the collection of the data has to be done very carefully to minimize bias. For example, the "poll of polls" (sum of a bunch of polls) accurately predicted the last election, including all the members of the senate.

But if you want to, you can make a poll come out any way you want. If you start with what result you want and figure out how to get it, you can get it to a pretty close degree. And if you don't, you just don't release the poll results.

Mike

[David Weaver]

None of it is poll data Ken. It is not biased data, it is not sample data, it is not survey data. It's actual enrollment data from plans. Period. Every employee in the plan, not randomized, not anonymous. It's not tainted, it's not biased, it is audited in its entirety on an *annual* basis. If it was incomplete, I would see it in year to year experience when unexpected losses occurred.

I'm certainly not going to name any employers or plans, but if I have a plan that has 12,540 employees in it (I do not, that's just a straw number), there are not 1000 missing and there are not 1000 in the data that shouldn't be there. It's a full census, including personally identifying information, compensation, status at the measurement date, etc. for every single person.

What I stated above should cause anyone with any sense of reason to question what's going on. If an employer does not coordinate any disability benefits and their similar business has 1/4th or 1/10th of the disability incidence as one that provides *very* generous disability benefits (same or more pay and benefits than an active worker), anyone with a rational thought process would wonder why the incidence trends so much with the level of the incentive to be disabled. Especially when the employers can literally tell you which employees were in a bad work accident and which follow a general trend (the "tripped off steps in an area where no other employees were at the time"). In negotiated benefits, it is not uncommon for an employee to be able to leave active status, get a stipend from the employer for being disabled, receive disability from social security and continue to receive credit toward retirement benefit accruals. There is an enormous incentive for employees to scam the system, as they may actually receive higher overall benefits and pay for their lifetime vs. what they would receive if they continued working. They also don't have job security issues if they can "make it", either, which is a huge deal for someone working in a shrinking industry in their early 50s, and precisely the reason that enrollment and applications are both higher when the economy is bad.

There is something I'm not communicating or that people are not grasping. I'm not talking about 2 small employers, and I'm not googling facts or using random sample data, I am comparing full and precise actual data.

Like it or not, there are few people on here who do this professionally like I do or who have access to actual complete data where you can compare populations and actual statuses. I don't generally rely on other peoples' interpretation of data or studies the same way a physician would not rely on a layman's interpretation to make a diagnosis. I also have the same level of disappointment in most peoples' ability to make rational conclusions from data or studies, just as a physician is probably disappointed on a daily basis in their patients' desire but inability to self diagnose or decide when they need medical attention.

There are a lot of people who have some sort of emotional attachment to whether there is or isn't fraud. I don't. I just see the numbers and the actual data, and I understand the subject matter better than 99.9% of the population. I only have to watch one thing to really suspect fraud, the variance of disability incidence with benefit levels. And as I said before, anyone who rationally does any probability-related work professionally would never look at an 80%+ increase in enrollment vs. a what was it, 15%? increase in workforce and say "well, with almost 9 million enrolled, it's probably just coincidence" or "well, 15 years ago, people probably just were disabled and not getting benefits". How would they have survived?

Do you recall being frustrated when people were telling you that everyone was getting rich making medical equipment or that everything is overpriced and medical equipment should cost a tiny fraction of what it does? When we talk about a subject like this, I feel much the same way.

[Andrew Joiner]

OIG follows up on hundreds of thousands of allegations of fraud, according to their annual report, and only deemed a small portion of those as necessary to investigate. Even if we assume that the number of un-investigated cases of actual benefits fraud is ten times the amount of cases opened by OIG, which we have no reason to believe, we're still only talking about a fraction of a percent of all disability claims.

Brad, If the SSA says we don't have a problem, that makes the NPR story WAY more interesting. Why do some counties have a much higher rate? There's no diagnosis called disability. Are there doctors like Dr. Timberlake in every disproportionately high county?

Lot's of Government agencies like OIG say " we investigated and everything is fine" If our elected officials said " we're cutting funding to Social Security Disability by 20%" that might help. If SS disability had less money to work with they might lower there standards on what fraud is.

[David Weaver]

Lot's of Government agencies like OIG say " we investigated and everything is fine" If our elected officials said " we're cutting funding to Social Security Disability by 20%" that might help. If SS disability had less money to work with they might lower there standards on what fraud is.

There is trouble even with statements like that. Part of PPACA (the health care bill) claims savings to offset expenses based on cutting physician reimbursements under medicare. It did right away. For years, legislation and budgets have credited themselves with income from cutting physician reimbursements, but when the effective date of the legislation nears, the cuts in reimbursements are stayed. Nobody ever goes back and redoes the budget numbers with actual expenditures.

There has to be a mechanism that puts the 20% in place, or it's just a temporary argument avoider or political resume builder that is changed by legislation not long before or after the cuts are scheduled to occur. The more complex the regulations are for SSDI, the more it favors those who understand the regulations in terms of getting disability (and not necessarily favoring the truly disabled more, which is supposed to be the point of regulations).

For years, I have seen pension funding bills that take credit for revenue to balance the bills. This is a non-partisan thing, they all do it. The argument goes like this, from the government's standpoint.

* we are providing funding relief
* employers over the next three years are expected to see reductions in pension contributions of approximately $1 trillion dollars
* at an effective tax rate of 35%, we expect this bill to generate 350 billion in savings for contributions not deducted in the next three years

Those same bills never address the fact that in all likelihood, the trillion dollars of contributions not made in the next three years will instead be made with accumulating interest after that point, where on a non-discounted basis, there is actually a cost to the bills, and on a discounted basis the savings is approximately zero if the discounting is done at the same return you'd expect a retirement trust to earn. The conclusion is that there is no savings, but the accounting submitted with the legsilation shows a $350 billion increase in tax revenue, as if you get to the end of a three year period and the world ends.

At the same time, if the same bill increases premiums for a pension insurer (a quasi governmental agency) that has funds that will never be accessible by the government, the expected value of future increased premiums paid is also credited as additional revenue for the bill, even though those dollars are off limits to the federal government.

Not picking on your thoughts andrew, I just never believe the broad statements in bills until after they've actually occurred and all of the parts have been accounted for.

Now, if bills actually do something structural, like the cuts to physician payments, as soon as the threat of them is real, there is a huge HUGE public outcry. Credit is taking for make-believe and the real world things are reversed.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

David.........How many companies?????......How many total employees????? How many on SSD??????? What is the geographical locations of the companies and the SSD recipients for which the data was provided ????

Define "Full and precise data"......Is this all the national data available or just data with which your company was involved?

While I realize this "data" wasn't gathered as a result of a poll, if the data is just regional or just what is seen by one company, it wouldn't be complete and thus not necessarily representative of the national situation.

You called out for data to back the 0.6% argument.....isn't it just a fair to want to know a little about the "data" you claim to have supporting you statements.

I am in no way trying to belittle you, your profession or your argument or make any implications but....

as surely as we need to be concerned about fraud, we also need to be concerned about the size and sources of "data" that was analyzed since that is what is being used to support arguments. .

Again....no personal implications or suggestions..... Please understand I am not trying to insult you.




.......and with that, I have formica in the shop that needs to be cut and glued to the fence for my new router table.

[David Weaver]

National data, several hundred employers. Like I said, it's incomplete in that it doesn't represent anyone who is not in a retirement plan (the otherwise able-bodied patients or individuals loitering around with patients during the day are generally not included).

I probably haven't had any employee data from hawaii, and maybe not alaska. That's about it. Otherwise, I've literally worked on plans that cover employees in maine, florida, washington state, california, texas, and everywhere in between.

Like I said, probably about 3/4ths of a million heads covered in them. Whether or not someone is disabled concerns me only so far as I have to model the costs of the disabled participants and the expected future disabled participants. The total number of those individuals on SSDI? No clue if it's 40,000 in total or 80,000 in total or anything between or outside of those. We don't aggregate statistics from one employer to another. What sticks out at us is when employers have a generous benefit and it gets abused, and we can then take a plan and compare it to another similar employer and find out if the disability rates are 10% different or 500% different. The former is likely legitimate experience, the latter is not.

It varies from employers where it's 25% of the under 65 population to employers where it's nearly none. It varies two ways generally...one by industry and two by the generosity of the benefits. Variability is greater among blue collar employers than white collar employers, one because white collar employees usually don't have negotiated benefits (they would forgo a lot of compensation and future benefits if they became disabled), and two because what are you going to say you did at work to be able to qualify for both the work-related benefits and the SSDI? Fell off of a rolling chair? Bumped your head on a computer when you tripped sitting down? (I'm sure it happens from time to time, but not with an incidence rate high enough you'd notice anything). A workplace where there are a lot of opportunities for injury and a lot of working conditions where only one or two employees or no employees might see the incident because of the workplace setup (mill or manufacturing facility with warehouse rooms, etc) is a lot more opportune, and the workers will be at compensation levels that make the benefits + SSDI look more attractive vs. current pay.

I don't know if the mental health parity requirements for health insurance apply to SSDI, but those could also add to the enrollment, and since the decisions and diagnoses may be more subjective than an x-ray of someones broken parts, they would provide another avenue for fraud.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Question?

How does whether or not an EMPLOYEE buys disability insurance offered through the company get figured to this?

[David Weaver]

The benefits in these plans are usually provided without cost to the employee. You can cover long term disability via various means, but one way to do it is to provide the benefits from a pension plan. The rest of the population where coverage is not provided through the plan, an employer will often cover a small baseline amount outside of the pension (for example 20%) and leave it up to the employee to pay the premium for any additional coverage. A plan doesn't have to provide any specific benefit for disability other than to state that a disabled participant will receive their vested benefits upon meeting general plan eligibility conditions (which is a no brainer, those benefits are legally protected, you can't offer less than those, anyway, so those aren't really even a disability benefit, they're just a vested benefit in general). A plan can, however, elect to provide benefits at a level that assumes a participant had a full work history (even if they did not) and pay those benefits upon disablement and convert benefits to retirement benefits once someone reaches retirement age. That kind of thing usually exists in collectively bargained benefits.

Coverage under those non-provided personally purchased benefits that you're referring to is probably pretty constant across regions where an individual doesn't have "free" coverage, depending on income level. The definition of disability can vary on those. The most standard definition in retirement plans is based on the social security disability definition, though, if it's provided. It removes the burden (and liability) of determining who is or isn't disabled from the employer, but it presents some hazard, too, in that an employee gets more than just SSDI if they qualify for SSDI. Plans of that type in the private sector are probably most common in areas where there was negotiated labor after wwII (a lot of benefits that exist got their roots due to wage and price freezes).

I don't know how those individual coverages work, they may be offset by income from other sources, etc, and vary state by state whereas what's in a retirement or a VEBA is spelled out very precisely in terms of eligibility for benefits and the amount of benefits paid.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

So....if an employer doesn't offer LTD free.....but does allow an employee to buy LTD through a 3rd party company with NO LTD funding from the company......does that figure into the data?

[David Weaver]

So....if an employer doesn't offer LTD free.....but does allow an employee to buy LTD through a 3rd party company with NO LTD funding from the company......does that figure into the data?

Like I said, that's likely constant across employers and differs more across income levels and job category. Its outside my scope. It's important to note that there is no need to be a group member to purchase that type of coverage, either, you can buy it on your own without opting in during enrollment or any other time at work.

[Andrew Joiner]

The employer/employee disability discussion is interesting. To get back to Social Security Disability abuse here's another quote from the NPR story:
------------------------------------------------
Part of Clinton's welfare reform plan pushed states to get people on welfare into jobs, partly by making states pay a much larger share of welfare costs. The incentive seemed to work; the welfare rolls shrank. But not everyone who left welfare went to work.
A person on welfare costs a state money. That same resident on disability doesn't cost the state a cent, because the federal government covers the entire bill for people on disability. So states can save money by shifting people from welfare to disability. And the Public Consulting Group is glad to help.
PCG is a private company that states pay to comb their welfare rolls and move as many people as possible onto disability. "What we're offering is to work to identify those folks who have the highest likelihood of meeting disability criteria," Pat Coakley, who runs PCG's Social Security Advocacy Management team, told me.
--------------------------------------
A question that a PCG agent asks when interviewing a person on welfare is "Can you think of anything else that's been bothering you and disabling you and preventing you from working?"

That is just amazing to me. It would be great if there were lawyers and private agents that could profit from getting people off SS disability. If government would ever admit there's a need for that, it would be great business. A business that's truly helping not enabling the formerly "disabled" and the taxpayers.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I will caution everyone that political statements and discussion are not allowed per the TOSs of SMC.

[David Weaver]

PCG is a private company that states pay to comb their welfare rolls and move as many people as possible onto disability. "What we're offering is to work to identify those folks who have the highest likelihood of meeting disability criteria," Pat Coakley, who runs PCG's Social Security Advocacy Management team, told me.

Ghee...something like that would never put free riders onto the system, would it? It would be interesting to know if their structure allows them to just provide lists to states, or if they were paid based on success rates?

[Brad Sperr]

I'm not trying to offend you, but I don't think you understand what connection there is between the statistics you provided and the actual number of people who are on SSA disability that shouldn't be. The difference between you and I is that I work with employer data on a daily basis, and I see the levels of disability coverage that vary not with job hazards but instead correlated with employer benefits.

I'm not offended, I'm confused. Why would your experience with employer benefit plans give you any greater insight into the misuse of Social Security disability benefits? Why would you assume that the correlations you have observed in your own profession carry over? It seems like the basis for your argument is the higher disability rates you have observed for employers with generous benefit levels. I agree that this correlation is suspect, but can you honestly conclude that the only explanation for the difference is that these beneficiaries are malingering? More importantly, are any of these cases investigated to determine if the beneficiaries are receiving benefits to which they are not entitled? The numbers I gave you were based on actual cases where OIG had some reasonable basis for believing that the misuse of Social Security disability benefits had occurred. Those numbers are a far more concrete indicator of the prevalence of actual benefits fraud than whatever statistical assumption you are applying, which you have yet to explain or quantify.

You seem to be fixated on the idea that Social Security disability beneficiaries somehow know the magic words to say in order to qualify for benefits and remain in the system, despite being perfectly capable of working. My own first hand experience with disability beneficiaries has shown that not to be true. The majority of the beneficiaries I encounter in my job couldn't game the system if they wanted to, because they are completely unaware of the disability standards applied by the Social Security Administration. Much less do the claim adjudication and medical improvement review processes give these beneficiaries a free pass when it comes to proving their disability. There are undoubtedly people receiving disability benefits for which they are not eligible, but that number is probably far lower than you would suspect.

[David Weaver]

Let's say you have an employer with 1000 active employees. 350 of them become SSDI over their lifetime, none come off of it.

Do you really believe that there is even a remote chance that even a majority of those individuals are legitimately disabled? If you do, you don't have much of a grasp on probability. Keep in mind, if they were becoming disabled because of legitimate work accidents (these are people who work above ground in a manufacturing industry no more dangerous than any other, not miners, not oil rig workers, not asbestos removal specialists, etc), osha would shut down their workplace.

You keep extrapolating. You need to add the word "some" to beneficiaries. Not all. In the employers like the sample I gave above, the employer can tell me the guys who got stuck in equipment, etc.

The individuals don't need to know everything about getting on disability, but they do need to know someone who does know enough about it and who is willing to help them. Do you think all of jesco white's descendants (in case you have seen the documentary) would know enough to get on disability on their own? I think that's extremely unlikely. A bunch of them are on it, however, and they appear to be able bodied to me, other than being high and drunk during the documentary.

[Rich Engelhardt]

My "data source" is any family gathering with my wife's side of the family...

The total number of individuals that have made "being disabled" their career path in life is - disturbing..

I deal with it by drinking beer....lots and lots of beer..

That way when I open my mouth and say something about it, it usually just gets dismissed as "Rich having too much beer".
I've noticed fewer and fewer people showing up for those gatherings though.
No problem - since we usually supply most of the food.



The individuals don't need to know everything about getting on disability, but they do need to know someone who does know enough about it and who is willing to help them
That's really it in a nut shell.
The dead beats and welfare cheats all have this informal network where they communicate to each other how to work the system.

[Rich Riddle]

The 2000 census showed that 19.3% of the United States disability, nearly one in five adult workers. The problem is that the census is survey, but it would be difficult to believe people would report disabilities with the questions worded the way they are if they didn't have disabilities. It would also be a felony. Here is a source that proves insightful and is very pro-disability folks.

http://dsc.ucsf.edu/main.php?name=census

It's a university. Unfortunately many of the sources for the 2000 census have been removed as you will find in their links. The government employees made finding the 2010 data on the subject more difficult. However, the numbers appear to be static and an article summarizes the data from the census here:

http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/miscellaneous/cb12-134.html

One should note that although that many have disabilities, many of the disabled have jobs.

Almost forgot to link the data for that report:

http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/p70-131.pdf

[Phil Thien]

When the benefits incent disablement, the rates are enormously higher than they are when they don't.

This.

I'm surprised David is getting such an argument over this.

[David Weaver]

This.

I'm surprised David is getting such an argument over this.

So am I. I'm also surprised that anyone would believe that it's coincidence. I know quads on SSDI, people with mets, etc. But they do not make 350 out of a 1000 employee group. Especially when a group that is not incented will have something more along the lines of 30 long term disableds.

[Brad Sperr]

So am I. I'm also surprised that anyone would believe that it's coincidence. I know quads on SSDI, people with mets, etc. But they do not make 350 out of a 1000 employee group. Especially when a group that is not incented will have something more along the lines of 30 long term disableds.

This topic is not about the incidence of employees within your particular purview who elect to receive favorable benefit packages instead of working. You steered the topic in that direction. The topic is about the misuse of Social Security disability benefits, and I take issue with your blanket statements that there are "gobs" of people receiving benefits who are not entitled and your outright refusal to believe that the prevalence of misuse could be closer to the number I quoted you, which is supported by actual data. No one is arguing that the trends you have seen within you own profession are a coincidence. But neither are they some sort of empirical fact that can be applied to an entirely different benefit scheme. You are making generalizations about the misuse of Social Security disability benefits, plain and simple, and couching them in terms of the unrelated data you've observed does not make them any more credible.

The disconnect I see in your argument is that you are observing a group of employees who have applied for and been approved for benefits. The fact that employers with more favorable benefit packages tend to have far more disabled beneficiaries does suggest that the employees have been incentivized to elect benefits instead of working and that some may very well be malingering. Similarly, with Social Security benefits we are observing peaks in applications that correlate with downturns in the economy or the expiration of unemployment benefits, which, admittedly, suggests that many people are applying simply because they have no other source of income although they may have no valid disability. However, there is no corresponding data, that I have seen, suggesting that these meritless applications are being approved and that these ineligible people are drawing benefits, unlike in your example. There does not appear to be any proportionate increase in the approval of Social Security disability claims in the peak years of applications. In fact, when there was the biggest jump in applications in 2009 the rate of claims approval actually went down, suggesting that meritless applications were weeded out in the earliest stages. Bear in mind that a yearly comparison between claims filed and claims approved doesn't paint the whole picture, since claims can linger for years in various stages of appeal. Stories on This American Life about a small county in Alabama where the rate of disability benefits is disproportionately high, without any other data, are merely anomalous and do not indicate some systemic failure or grand collusion between disability applicants, crooked doctors and greedy lawyers.

The other distinction I see between your example is that there is not a marked incentive for people to elect Social Security disability benefits instead of working. The average disability benefit rate is lower than minimum wage and is tied into an indexed cost of living adjustment that is never guaranteed. Nor do disability benefit recipients necessarily receive immediate and continuous health insurance coverage, like your example beneficiaries would. Title II beneficiaries will wait up to 29 months before their Medicare insurance starts, depending on the nature of their disability and the date they are first determined to be disabled. Social Security disability benefits also do not qualify for the earned income tax credit, the strongest work incentive around, unlike other forms of disability retirement benefits. If approached rationally, no one would ever elect to receive Social Security disability benefits if they are were capable of working, because they would be tying themselves in to a life of poverty, and that is the one point that I thought the This American Life segment made well.

A lot of comments in this thread reflect peoples' limited experience with less-than-honest disability benefit recipients and inclination to project this experience and assume that some large number of beneficiaries must also be gaming the system. In my work, I deal with this sort of unfounded bias against the recipients of all forms of public assistance day in and day out, and I just wish people would stop and question their assumptions. When someone is receiving disability benefits, why can't we just presume that they are eligible unless we have some reason to believe otherwise? When we see large increases in the rate of claims or large numbers of people within a certain geographical area being approved for benefits, why should we assume that these beneficiaries are gaming the system? Perhaps the disability standards have become too lenient. Perhaps we need stronger work incentives to provide these people with a viable option. But why do we automatically heap such blame and scorn on people with obviously limited opportunities who only stand to gain a bare subsistence from their benefits? Just a thought, and I'll try not to comment on this thread again. I'm much more qualified to talk about beer anyway :)

[Ben Hatcher]

A few years ago, I broke my ankle. I COULD walk on it. It hurt like heck and would probably cause permanent damage, but I could do it if I had to. I'm sure there are plenty of people on disability that could work even if it means enduring tremendous pain if they had to. As benefits approach full employment income, the "had to" part goes away. It seems quite logical that the number of people taking advantage of the benefits would increase in a similar fashion. The assumption is that all of the 320 people who don't work under the generous policy and do work under the less generous one are perfectly fit and capable and suffer no ill result from their labor.

As you said earlier, most of these cases are people in their 50's. Thinking back to my auto plant days, many of the guys who were of that age had worked there since they were 18. They gave a lot of their body to that plant. Every day got harder and harder. At some point, the cost of stopping passed their threshold of being able to tough it out another day and they retired or perhaps went on disability. Why is that so wrong? Shouldn't that be something that as a nation we can be proud of? Look at us, we value human dignity! We take care of the less fortunate! We feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome strangers and all that other stuff that God fearing people are supposed to do!

[David Weaver]

A few years ago, I broke my ankle. I COULD walk on it. It hurt like heck and would probably cause permanent damage, but I could do it if I had to. I'm sure there are plenty of people on disability that could work even if it means enduring tremendous pain if they had to. As benefits approach full employment income, the "had to" part goes away. It seems quite logical that the number of people taking advantage of the benefits would increase in a similar fashion. The assumption is that all of the 320 people who don't work under the generous policy and do work under the less generous one are perfectly fit and capable and suffer no ill result from their labor.

As you said earlier, most of these cases are people in their 50's. Thinking back to my auto plant days, many of the guys who were of that age had worked there since they were 18. They gave a lot of their body to that plant. Every day got harder and harder. At some point, the cost of stopping passed their threshold of being able to tough it out another day and they retired or perhaps went on disability. Why is that so wrong? Shouldn't that be something that as a nation we can be proud of? Look at us, we value human dignity! We take care of the less fortunate! We feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome strangers and all that other stuff that God fearing people are supposed to do!

Can you tell me why these days, when jobs are less physically demanding on average, the number of people in disability has ballooned vs. what it was back then? Also, why would there be an enormous increase in applications and a corresponding increase when the economy is bad or when there is financial incentive to apply?

[David Weaver]

This topic is not about the incidence of employees within your particular purview who elect to receive favorable benefit packages instead of working. You steered the topic in that direction. The topic is about the misuse of Social Security disability benefits, and I take issue with your blanket statements that there are "gobs" of people receiving benefits who are not entitled and your outright refusal to believe that the prevalence of misuse could be closer to the number I quoted you, which is supported by actual data. No one is arguing that the trends you have seen within you own profession are a coincidence. But neither are they some sort of empirical fact that can be applied to an entirely different benefit scheme. You are making generalizations about the misuse of Social Security disability benefits, plain and simple, and couching them in terms of the unrelated data you've observed does not make them any more credible.

The disconnect I see in your argument is that you are observing a group of employees who have applied for and been approved for benefits. The fact that employers with more favorable benefit packages tend to have far more disabled beneficiaries does suggest that the employees have been incentivized to elect benefits instead of working and that some may very well be malingering. Similarly, with Social Security benefits we are observing peaks in applications that correlate with downturns in the economy or the expiration of unemployment benefits, which, admittedly, suggests that many people are applying simply because they have no other source of income although they may have no valid disability. However, there is no corresponding data, that I have seen, suggesting that these meritless applications are being approved and that these ineligible people are drawing benefits, unlike in your example. There does not appear to be any proportionate increase in the approval of Social Security disability claims in the peak years of applications. In fact, when there was the biggest jump in applications in 2009 the rate of claims approval actually went down, suggesting that meritless applications were weeded out in the earliest stages. Bear in mind that a yearly comparison between claims filed and claims approved doesn't paint the whole picture, since claims can linger for years in various stages of appeal. Stories on This American Life about a small county in Alabama where the rate of disability benefits is disproportionately high, without any other data, are merely anomalous and do not indicate some systemic failure or grand collusion between disability applicants, crooked doctors and greedy lawyers.

The other distinction I see between your example is that there is not a marked incentive for people to elect Social Security disability benefits instead of working. The average disability benefit rate is lower than minimum wage and is tied into an indexed cost of living adjustment that is never guaranteed. Nor do disability benefit recipients necessarily receive immediate and continuous health insurance coverage, like your example beneficiaries would. Title II beneficiaries will wait up to 29 months before their Medicare insurance starts, depending on the nature of their disability and the date they are first determined to be disabled. Social Security disability benefits also do not qualify for the earned income tax credit, the strongest work incentive around, unlike other forms of disability retirement benefits. If approached rationally, no one would ever elect to receive Social Security disability benefits if they are were capable of working, because they would be tying themselves in to a life of poverty, and that is the one point that I thought the This American Life segment made well.

A lot of comments in this thread reflect peoples' limited experience with less-than-honest disability benefit recipients and inclination to project this experience and assume that some large number of beneficiaries must also be gaming the system. In my work, I deal with this sort of unfounded bias against the recipients of all forms of public assistance day in and day out, and I just wish people would stop and question their assumptions. When someone is receiving disability benefits, why can't we just presume that they are eligible unless we have some reason to believe otherwise? When we see large increases in the rate of claims or large numbers of people within a certain geographical area being approved for benefits, why should we assume that these beneficiaries are gaming the system? Perhaps the disability standards have become too lenient. Perhaps we need stronger work incentives to provide these people with a viable option. But why do we automatically heap such blame and scorn on people with obviously limited opportunities who only stand to gain a bare subsistence from their benefits? Just a thought, and I'll try not to comment on this thread again. I'm much more qualified to talk about beer anyway :)

Your statistic does nothing to represent the population as a whole. The only way it could would be if the audit covered every single individual and if the audit had the ability to tell who was truly disabled, vs. who can meet the regulatory requirements. But it doesn't do either of those. It's a small sample.

It's that simple. If you think that taking the total number of individuals from a small sample that were removed from the system and then dividing that by the entire enrollment (most of which was not audited) makes for an accurate representation of the percentage of the population that is fraudulently collecting benefits, there's not a lot I can do to discuss the subject with you within the realm of reason.

I know few individuals who are on disability, so I can't be cast into the group who has made a decision based on "a few people I know". I am pleased that most of my relatives and friends choose to be gainfully employed, even when things aren't going their way. I know likelihood and probability well enough to know your .06% statistic is not relevant for the population.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

This thread has run beyond its useful life and I am closing it.