Krugman on Disability

by Editor
January 28, 2013 at 9:01 am

http://www.smartertimes.com/762/krugman-on-disability

Paul Krugman's column says:

I think it's important to understand the extent to which leading Republicans live in an intellectual bubble. They get their news from Fox and other captive media, they get their policy analysis from billionaire-financed right-wing think tanks, and they're often blissfully unaware both of contrary evidence and of how their positions sound to outsiders.

So when Mr. Romney made his infamous "47 percent" remarks, he wasn't, in his own mind, saying anything outrageous or even controversial. He was just repeating a view that has become increasingly dominant inside the right-wing bubble, namely that a large and ever-growing proportion of Americans won't take responsibility for their own lives and are mooching off the hard-working wealthy. Rising unemployment claims demonstrate laziness, not lack of jobs; rising disability claims represent malingering, not the real health problems of an aging work force.

Sorry, Professor Krugman. The idea that rising disability claims represent something other than "the real health problems of an aging work force" is not an idea confined to the right-wing intellectual bubble. The idea has been put forth in recent months by a professor of economics at MIT, David Autor, in a working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research; by a Bloomberg View editorial, and by a USA Today editorial. Oh, and also in the New York Times, in a column by President Obama's former budget director, Peter Orszag. Mr. Orszag cited a paper from the Center for American Progress and the Hamilton Project, two left-of-center think tanks. Mr. Orszag wrote:

The spike in disability insurance applications (and awards) does not reflect a less healthy population. The fraction of working-age adults who report a disability, about one in 10, has remained roughly constant for the past 20 years. (Indeed, it would be surprising if the number of workers with disabilities had risen by 50 percent over the past four years.) Rather, the weak labor market has driven more people to apply for disability benefits that they qualify for but wouldn't need if they could find work.

Mr. Orszag recommended, "the disability insurance program itself must be reformed."

The notion that this is all just the product of some Fox News or "billionaire-financed right-wing think tanks"-produced "intellectual bubble" is just flat-out wrong. It suggests that Professor Krugman himself is living in a left-wing intellectual bubble. It suggests that Professor Krugman himself is guilty of what he accused Republicans of, being "blissfully unaware both of contrary evidence and of how their positions sound to outsiders."