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Yachtie -> RE: Is anyone surprised? (2/14/2012 12:33:16 PM)
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The only thing that is surprising is that it took so long for the Rs to figure it out. Allowing the extended tax breaks without concurrent reductions in spending forces the debt higher, which is a potential bombshell Obama may have to deal with to his detriment.
Just an aside, here is an interesting article on where those who roll off unemployment go -
But how does one survive after losing the unemployment benefits? Clearly people struggle. One way to pay the bills however is to file for and receive the federal disability benefits - assuming of course one has a disability. Interestingly enough, the Great Recession and the slow recovery somehow generated many more disability recipients.
JPMorgan: As of January over 8.5 million individuals were receiving federal disability payments (an additional 2 million spouses and children of disabled workers also received disability payments). Since the onset of the recession and the subsequent slow recovery, this figure has accelerated and grown faster than the overall size of the potential labor force— currently 5.3% of the population aged 25-64 is on federal disability, up from 4.5% when the recession began.
JPMorgan: The cost to the federal budget of these programs has escalated along with the number of claimants, and now runs around $200 billion per year—more than the budgets of the Departments of Commerce, Energy, Homeland Security, Interior, Justice, and State combined.
Thus a quarter of people who drop out of the workforce and come off the unemployment benefits, simply move to receiving disability payments. And most stay there until they roll into the social security program when they retire - from their disability. The same source, a different program.
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