Stephen C. Goss testified about the rise in the disability rolls,
Demographic changes, principally the drop in the birth rate after the baby boom, have dramatically changed the age distribution of the population. This change has increased the cost of the DI program as a percent of taxable payroll (and as a percent of GDP) over the past 20 years in much the same way that it will raise OASI and Medicare costs over the next 20 years. Disability insured rates and incidence rates have increased substantially for women, further contributing to higher DI cost. However, all of these trends have stabilized or are expected to do so in the future.
For progressives, this is good news and bad news. The good news is that this analysis suggests that the rise in disability reflects the aging of Baby Boomers, rather than what Casey Mulligan calls the redistribution recession.
The bad news is that the Baby Boom really does have predictable adverse effects on the entitlements budget. As the Boomers hit the prime age for disability, up went the disability rolls. Coming next? The Baby Boomers reaching the age of eligibility for retirement benefits and for Medicare. As Andrew Biggs points out, this is in fact the main driver of increased Medicare spending going forward.
I haven’t read much about this, but the other problem is that not only did the birth rate slow, it decreased much more for wealthier families who tend to also have the most productive offspring. So not only do you have a dearth of workers coming up behind the Baby Boomers, the average productivity level of that cohort is likely also decreasing.
“… wealthier families who tend to also have the most productive offspring.”
Y’know, I suppose I could make the point that the economic structure of society has changed; that the people who in an earlier day might have been self-employed tailors or shop owners now find themselves trapped in low income low status jobs at Walmart or Amazon distribution centers; that an increasing fraction of middle class jobs is siphoned off to China and India; yadda yadda yadda.
But that isn’t as much fun as preaching class warfare, is it? So I’ll just say that I’m a baby boomer and I got my social security check this month, and if that’s going to piss off anyone who sees themselves as my moral or intellectual superior, they can just suck it up.