NPR's New War on SSI, Disability Reciprients

[warrprayer]

Read on D.U. recently about NPR going on and on about people getting disability/SSI, seemingly from a neoliberal point of view. This afternoon, caught part of "This American Life" doing a show about a town where one in four are on disability - "how come I have to work and you don't"? This is a shame, as I used to really enjoy T.A.L. What the hell is going on with "liberal" N.P.R.?

[CTyankee]

1. from what I heard, it was a revelation to the interviewer to learn that the people she was

interviewing had no idea that there was work they could do sitting down or not using their hands. It was a real case of two different worlds. She even read from the roster of Help Wanted jobs. The lower level ones were all jobs whereyou had to stand.

She also interviewed the doctor that was helping people get disability and her portrayal was one of a humanitarian.

I can't believe we heard the same program.

[warrprayer]

4. Yes, I heard that too

but to my ears it was kind of like "nice liberal doctor"... DEADBEATS ON DISABILITY! DEADBEATS ON SSI! FAKE BACK PAIN! "oh, did we mention "nice liberal doctor"?

[CTyankee]

11. I got that she was reiterating old myths about people on disability or how some people

view those who have disability benefits, not so much that she herself felt that way. I got the feeling that she had had her eyes opened by doing this show, particularly since she had only done the piece about a mill closing and lots of people who had worked there their entire lives were thrown out of work while still in their 50s and how unemployable they truly were. But then I only heard a portion of the show since I was in the car running errands.

[Kolesar]

2. Chicago Public Media and PRI, actually

"This is This American Life"
pause
"I'm Ira Glass"

[warrprayer]

3. the new D.U. search

isn't working too well for me, someone else noted N.P.R.s leaning right in a discussion of disability/SSI recently, and I can't find it. It was in "Politics 2013". Sorry.

This might help...

http://election.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2017012

[hedgehog]

5. The one fact that was never mentioned was how much disability pays -

if you can work, you're better off working!

My husband picked up a bit of a slant on the charts at the web site - the title was Low Income people on disability -

he said by definition, if you're on disability, you're low income! The hidden message in the chart title is that those people are milking the system.

Another aspect that wasn't discussed - the states with the highest rate of disability tend to feature very tough jobs (coal mining in West Virginia and Arkansas) and/or generally the worst health status in the nation (Mississippi, Alabama).

Finally - the charts are mostly graphed on an axis of 0-7% of the workforce rather than 0-100%. You can justify this, but it does leave out all the people who aren't on disability.

[DonCoquixote]

6. It takes a long,hard road to get SSI

and I was prodded,poked, pushed for about 5 years before my lawyer escalated it to the federal level. I have worked in prisons, funerla homes, and other places too raw to mention, but lo and behold, even in union shops, people found a way to fire me because my Asbergers "creeped them out."

Americans will let themsleves be robbed of ten dollars because they fear someone they deem unworthy gets a dollar.

[Cannikin]

7. I have PTSD...

And you really don't want me as a coworker right now. I'll be back as soon as I'm able. Thanks for your concern, NPR!

[Vanje]

8. NPR is the mouthpiece of American Enterprise Institute

They're not even trying to hide it any more.

[Nictuku]

9. Shouldn't the question be:

.... "how come I have my health and you don't?" because if you are collecting disability, it generally means you are disabled in some way.

[Ron Obvious]

10. Just listened to the same show (TAL)

And I didn't get that message out of it at all. I thought it was an interesting, balanced look at how screwed up the system was for everybody and how 'disability' became a method used by the government to "hide" people so that our unemployment numbers don't reflect the far worse reality.

[CTyankee]

12. Yes, I wish that others here had heard what we heard. I feel the same way, altho I didn't

hear it all of a piece. I thought the narrator knew she didn't have a clue about these peoples' lives and that it was a real eye-opener to her.

[Ron Obvious]

13. I caught most of it...

I was doing something else at the same time too, but I did catch most of it. The beginning of the show did set off some of my warning flags too that this was going to be about malingering scroungers cheating the system, but that's not at all how I felt by the end of it. I took it the exact way you did. Besides, I know TAL better than that.

Maybe the OP turned it off in disgust after the first bit.

[CTyankee]

14. Could be. We liberals are used to having the media practically club us to death with such

musings about leeches on the system.

I remember one of the guys she had interviewed about his layoff experience saying he'd far rather be back working than on disability. But they closed the plant on him and all the "retraining" classes in the world weren't going to help him. He was to all extents and purposes "unemployable."