That is the question Chana Joffe Walt poses at the end of this outstanding podcast about Social Security’s quarter-trillion-dollar disability program, which
- over-pays the able-bodied,
- under-serves the actually-disabled (who only receive about $1,100 a month, plus health care),
- keeps able-bodied Americans out of work (opportunity cost),
- is used as a more permanent alternative to the more traditional (and temporary) welfare program TANF,
- costs a weird amount of money for no good reason, and
- incentivizes parents to under-educate their children.
…in case you were wondering after my last post which federal spending programs I do think need to be cut.
(And yes, I have recognized that this is a problem for a while now.)
Listen to the full podcast here if you haven’t already.
Fifty piles of cash like this would not even be 1% of a quarter-trillion dollars.