Something stuck me when I first listened to this: there was a little anecdote about how one of the radio producer's co-workers had an injured back, but continued to work at his office job with relatively little impact on his performance. The same kind of injury would be career-ending for someone who's primary job skills are in a field that involved manual labor (e.g., welder, plumber, or one of the many oil-extraction jobs). The growth of disability claims is often characterized as a case of people gaming the system to extract handouts from the government. But maybe what is happening is we're seeing aging boomers and gen-xers who work as manual laborers, and who's bodies are finally breaking down to the point that they can no-longer function at their jobs. That seems like genuine disability to me, and so isn't it appropriate for them to use these government services?