ran 3.3 miles
It's official. The number of workers on federal disability now surpasses the population of New York City.
8,733,461.
The population of New York City was 8,244,910 according to the latest Census Bureau estimates, and that was in July of 2011.
June, 1992---118,419,000 people employed in America; 3,334,333 workers taking federal disability payments. That is one person taking disability payments per 35.5 working Americans.
January, 2009 (Obama's inauguration)---142,187,000 people employed in America; 7,442,377 workers taking federal disability payments. That is one person taking disability payments per 19.1 working Americans.
May, 2012---142,287,000 people employed in America; 8,707,185 workers taking federal disability payments. That is one person taking disability payments per 16.3 working Americans.
Federal "Disability" is a necessary safety net in America and for many individuals it is certainly deserving, but these numbers are clearly an abuse of the system.
(On a separate note, did you happen to pick up on the fact that since Barack Obama was inaugurated to a point of three years and five months into his presidency only 100,000 more people are working, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Social Security Administration? And where is the other half of America? There are over 300 million people in this country. If only 142,000,000 Americans are working then what is the other half doing? The other half is not aged entirely from infant to teenager or in the retiree bracket, incapable of playing a role in these working/disability numbers. So, when you see unemployment numbers and other jobs statistics in the news, know that they are extremely misleading. The numbers above prove that.)
It gets better. In the month of June, not only did 8,733,461 Americans take federal disability payments, but 165,469 spouses of disabled workers and 1,899,756 children of disabled workers took disability payments. That ups the number to 10,798,686; one person taking disability per 13.2 working Americans.
8,733,461 federal disability payments were made in June at an average of $1,111.42 per person. At the rate federal disability is accelerating, it will not be long before the working American ratio versus disability will be 1:8 or 1:9. Numbers like these are unsustainable.
2,080 miles from Lafayette, LA to Washington D.C. and back + 17.0
Here is what happened one year ago on Day308
