This is how you measure decline in an economy...

[Lukey]

There has been a dramatic shrinkage in the United States over the past 20 years in the number of workers actually employed and earning paychecks per worker who is not employed and is taking federal disability insurance payments.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/8733461-workers-federal-disability-exceed-population-new-york-city

And, of course, for the left it is one of their measures of success...

 

[Arkady]

It would be interesting to get into why this is. Were disability requirements loosened? Has there been less effort to crack down on fraud? Has OSHA not been policing workplace safety as carefully? Is it just because the workforce is older (and fatter), and thus more prone to disability? Is it because the economy is weak, such that people can't find decent-paying work and are thus more tempted to get by on disability checks? Some combination? The timing could at least help to tease out the impact of the economy, since in the Clinton era we had outstanding job creation and soaring median wages, such that we wouldn't expect labor-market-weakening to have been factoring in during those years.

 

[Lukey]

It would be interesting to get into why this is. Were disability requirements loosened? Has there been less effort to crack down on fraud? Has OSHA not been policing workplace safety as carefully? Is it just because the workforce is older (and fatter), and thus more prone to disability? Is it because the economy is weak, such that people can't find decent-paying work and are thus more tempted to get by on disability checks? Some combination? The timing could at least help to tease out the impact of the economy, since in the Clinton era we had outstanding job creation and soaring median wages, such that we wouldn't expect labor-market-weakening to have been factoring in during those years.

It is primarily a function of loosening requirements for obtaining disability status over the years and the piss poor Obamanomics recovery providing strong incentives for folks to try and obtain it. To the extent that President Obama has been successful in implementing his agenda we have entered a new normal that equates to economic stagnation (like Japan and the Euro-zone) and will just continue this trend.

Clinton's economic "miracle" was simply the "supply side" effects of curtailing government spending coupled with a pro-business regulatory agenda (both of which are missing in Obamanomics).

 

[Arkady]

When did the requirements get loosened? Does that coincide with an increase in disability claims?

As for the strong Clinton economy, it's actually nothing special. The economy is ALWAYS strong when Democrats have more than four years to fix the problems left to them by Republican predecessors. In fact, the Clinton era doesn't even compare particularly favorably with the late Kennedy/Johnson era or the late FDR/Truman era, when unemployment rates were even lower than in the late Clinton era and incomes were rising even faster.

 

[Lapcat]

And the ONLY reason Clinton had any such "miracle" is because the Republicans took control of both houses from 1995 until Bush won in 2001. Clinton was, in fact, a lame duck president with the GOP in control of 2/3 of government for five years. Contrast that with the reality that the DemocRat socialists have had control of 2/3 of government since 2007 (for the past five plus years), including the last two years of Bush's presidency, and you have the explanation for the current disaster we are now forced to endure.

It is primarily a function of loosening requirements for obtaining disability status over the years and the piss poor Obamanomics recovery providing strong incentives for folks to try and obtain it. To the extent that President Obama has been successful in implementing his agenda we have entered a new normal that equates to economic stagnation (like Japan and the Euro-zone) and will just continue this trend.

Clinton's economic "miracle" was simply the "supply side" effects of curtailing government spending coupled with a pro-business regulatory agenda (both of which are missing in Obamanomics).