Many of those applying for disability "benefits" are those over the age of 45 that were "pushed out" of the workforce in our present "recession". I was fortunate to be able to find work after being laid-off and unemployed for nearly two years. However, my eyes were opened by my "stint" of being unemployed. My efforts in seeking employment exposed the blatant discrimination that exists and the difficulty that older workers face in seeking employment. For most white men, applying for disability is a last resort.
Americans are very generous to people with disabilities. Since passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act in 1990, millions of public and private dollars have been spent on curb cuts, bus lifts and special elevators.
The idea has been to enable people with disabilities to live and work with the same ease as others, as they make their way forward in life. I feel sure the large majority of Americans are pleased that we are doing this.
But there is another federal program for people with disabilities that has had an unhappier effect. This is the disability insurance (DI) program, which...
Add to that the third-class 'status" that white males possess with 'affirmative action", "set-asides" and other discriminatory practices and it is easy to see that disability may be the only way out. As most white men have paid taxes into the system for decades, I see no problem with white men using disability as a "last resort".