In fact you might expect there to be more people on disability in 1960, seeing as WWII ended only 15 years before that (PTSD, etc). I suppose that those people simply couldn't get onto disability back then though.
It's like lot of people have simply lost hope.
The difference is that modern jobs aren't worth it. No pay, no discretion to make decisions, and your entire management chain feels like they're in the same boat.
Working for a small company where you're treated with respect and given a chance to grow or flexibility or whatever is one thing.
Working for a soulless corporate chain that consistently underschedules so that you're overworked and then writes you up if you want to go see your sick/dying relative is soul draining.
Working for a corporation that refuses to give you a consistent schedule but expects you to come in on your day off to cover someone else is soul draining.
Working for a corporation who will schedule you for 36 hours even though they're short workers because otherwise they might have to actually give you some garbage-tier healthcare is soul draining.
>The difference is that modern jobs aren't worth it.
For all of these people complaining about "jobs these days" I would love to hear what period of history they think had it easier.
That does sound like a problem. If this really is a dire problem, then let's start by forcibly disappropriating multi-generational landlords and people with trust funds of their inherited wealth, thereby forcing them to work. If that doesn't free up enough laborers to keep the machine humming, then we can start thinking about carrots and sticks for the ppors.
(I'm not justifying or excusing disability fraud, just explaining what's been happening.)
https://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/
> There's no diagnosis called disability. You don't go to the doctor and the doctor says, "We've run the tests and it looks like you have disability." It's squishy enough that you can end up with one person with high blood pressure who is labeled disabled and another who is not.
Here's the section that I think answers your question:
> Who’s paying for this? Well, again, if we look at government numbers, it looks like it’s friends and family, meaning girlfriends, other family members, and Uncle Sam. Disability insurance programs pay some benefits for more than half of these unworking men, it seems. Disability benefits do not provide a princely income, let’s be clear about that, but they do allow for an alternative to life in the working world, which is exactly the opposite of the original, and I think quite noble, intention of disability programs, which is to provide for people who couldn’t take care of themselves, couldn’t work.