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America THE NEW WELFARE America: A Disabled Nation? O


About 5 million workers have been added to the disability rolls since President Obama took ofice. BY MATTHEW LYSIAK


n a rainy day in june, a line stretches out the door of the Social Security office in Brooklyn, N.Y., extending half way down the block. Many in the line clutch doctors’ notes explaining why


they cannot work. Some have been waiting 30 minutes in the downpour, steeling themselves for the long paperwork slog that awaits as they file their disability claims. The doors open. Inside, a worker confides: “In my five


years here, I’ve seen this line just about double.” The social worker tells Newsmax that she fears recrimi-


nation for speaking her mind. But she estimates that as many as half those who enter her office to file for disability are working the system.


12 NEWSMAX | AUGUST 2012 Just one social worker’s bad experience? Hardly. Labor


statistics indicate the spiraling ranks of the disabled have increased by a staggering 5 million since January 2009, when President Obama took office. “It’s become a joke,” the staffer says of the parade of dis-


ability applicants pouring into her office daily. “Everyone knows most of these people are gaming the system. They look just as healthy as can be, but they get a doctor to sign a note, and a wink and a nod later they are on the rolls.” By any measure, applications for disability are becom-


ing a serious fiscal problem. They have jumped more than 30 percent since December 2007, and the number of Ameri- cans receiving disability is up by 23 percent. If those numbers sound abstract, consider this: The


Social Security disability program’s trust fund is being drained so fast that experts say it could run out of money only four years from now. That’s much faster than the looming insolvency of Medicare or Social Security retire- ment. According to Bloomberg BusinessWeek, the aver-


SAM MORRIS/LAS VEGAS SUN


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