Disability Benefit Program Is Going Broke

For a country still gasping to recover from the Great Recession, disability payments from Social Security have evolved into a lifeline and an economic trap for millions of unemployed Americans threatening the program with insolvency in just four short years.

Created decades ago to help those unable to work because of severe health problems, the $128 billion program stops many from sliding into total poverty and inflicting further damage on the economy. More Americans qualified for disability than found jobs over the past three months, and since 2000, the number of beneficiaries rose by 73 percent, even though the workforce rose by less than 10 percent. But of the 8.7 million beneficiaries, federal officials claim the vast majority – with some estimates as high as 99 percent – will never rejoin the workforce and remain dependent on the federal government.

Both the Obama administration and congressional Republicans say that they are weighing reforms to salvage the finances of the disability system before the politics of the issue harden along partisan lines. "It requires you to think very hard about the social contract for this program," said Janice Eberly, the assistant Treasury secretary for economic policy. "Working is preferred to any programmatic alternatives, both from the individual's view and the taxpayers' view." Read more >>