Unemployment Explained: Obama's Disability Scammers

Townhall.com ^ | May 6, 2012 | John Ransom



I have to credit our own Mike Shedlock for writing about how Obama’s been able to drive down the topline unemployment number even though unemployment remains as a big problem today as it has ever been.

I’m often reluctant to piggy back on a contributor’s work, but when something is really newsworthy, I think it’s justified.

Yesterday Mish pointed out that:

In the last year, the civilian population rose by 3,638,000. Yet the labor force only rose by 945,000. Those not in the labor force rose by 2,693,000.
In the last month, actual employment fell by 169,000, but the unemployment rate dropped by .1%.
That is an amazing "achievement" to say the least.


How did Obama do this magic trick of moving unemployment from a high of 10 percent to 8.1 percent without adding, you know, jobs?
Well according to Shedlock, economists at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley say that those on Social Security Disability (SSDI) checks have risen by about 2.2 million.
People who qualify for SSDI are automatically excluded from the workforce, meaning that you can actually have an economy losing jobs while technically the unemployment rate will go down as more people received disability benefits and are subtracted from the workforce.
Social Security Disability is a picture perfect program scam for the Obama administration. It allows Obama to say that unemployment is going down, while adding to the rolls of people who are dependent on some sort of Democrat-Party enabled government assistance.
Prior to these revelations, I had thought that the country’s workforce was shrinking because persistent joblessness was causing people to stop looking for work. In other words, I though it was just another example of Obama’s economic incompetence.
I’m not ruling out incompetence completely, but when the administration has a vested interest in allowing fraud to happen by turning a blind eye, they act like caravan stuck in a sand storm, especially if it adds more potential voters to the dole.
And what’s worse, the damage done to the economy by this type of fraud - and to the legitimately disabled who need the benefits- will take generation to fix.
Because, while joblessness can be reversed with some sensible economic policies, adding to the disability rolls creates permanent damage to the economy from which the country will not recover in generations. Writes Bloomberg.com