Two segments from Friday's Chris Hayes show debunking the NPR disability report
NPR's "Unfit for Work" special report that has been widely criticized here
First Chris Hayes segment criticizing the report
second segment
Guests in both segment from Friday's
All In with Chris Hayes:
Michael Astrue, former Social Security commissioner (2007-2013)
Rebecca Vallas, attorney & disability advocate
Avik Roy, fellow of the conservative Manhattan Institute and author of Forbes.com blog "The Apothecary"
From
a companion MSNBC.com article:
Recently, a handful of conservative commentators such as Fox News Chris Stirewalt and the National Reviews Jonah Goldberg have cited disability benefits for people who could be working if they hadnt become accustomed to relying on checks from the government.
The source of this line of argument may be a recent Planet Money feature by NPRs Chana Joffe-Walt. In Unfit for Work: The startling rise of disability in America, Joffe-Walt writes that an entire disability-industrial complex exists to (p)ush more people onto disability, whether theyre actually fit to work or not. As a result, the number of Americans who are on disability has skyrocketed.
Catherine Ruetschlin, one of the authors of the Demos report, described disability benefits as a red herring.
Its not a problem with the disability program, she said. Its a problem of there not being adequate jobs. She said that people would naturally rely more on their disability benefits or other sources of income when the only jobs available were ones they would be physically unable to perform.