Also when I was a parole officer I had 18 year old Thugs who refused to get jobs, because hey claimed they were disabled. After asking them how they were disabled they couldn't tell me. Their mother just started getting them disability checks when they were kids, and they were still getting it. THEY COULDN"T F***ING EVEN TELL ME HOW THEY WERE DISABLED.
Operating concept here - they got used to getting disability, and couldn't get into the idea of working for a living.
As I said, I was told I have a good case for disability, but it took a year and a half to talk me into it. The "incident" three years ago exacerbated my bad back, my bad knee, bunged up the other one, netted me several dozen fractures (days when the weather changes are pure Hell - especially since I can't get a decent painkiller in a useful quantity, and the meds I'm on for the headache I've had for the last fourteen months make me skip "drunk" and go right to "alcohol poisoning." Ergo, I can't drink anymore, either...) and a whole host of other issues.
Works in Progress is my trying to do what I
can do to do something useful and productive - even though it isn't much (it has helped with the bills from time to time - problem is, the bills catch up on us and tap what I'd usually allocate to R&D to expand my offerings. That's why I'm so slow with new goodies - I keep getting clobbered with other stuff.) And the books? "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach." It's just a difference between "can't because they never could" and "can't because they can't anymore" - I very nearly can't anymore. Doesn't mean I can't help others learn, so I just shift how I do things.
I can see how a working person who suddenly finds himself on disability could see problems with the system, and I see (all the time!) people who abuse the system heavily. I once knew a woman who had a host of medical issues, was on full disability, and still ended up selling dope just to make rent and medical bills. "Rent" was for "low income" housing. My younger son lives in "low income" housing, and a two-bedroom apartment (him, his wife, and my grandson) still runs $1200/month. Last year was $1000/month - they jacked it up $200/month "just on account of 'cause." I see a huge problem with that as well, but that's another discussion.
This was a serious ethical dilemma for me - on the one hand, I can't abide dope dealers - probably because they're poisoning people to make easy money, and lots of it. On the other hand, living here in the Bay Area is difficult at best with a steady income - on disability, it borders on impossible.
I resolved it the best way I could - I simply told her why I decided the way I did, and we haven't spoken in sixteen years. No, I've never turned her in. Hell, this is the first time I've mentioned it to anyone other than my wife in all that time! I don't consider it a "ideal" solution, but it's one I've learned to live with (and even that took me some time.)
I blame, in large measure, the "sense of entitlement" that kids have been raised with in the last 20-25 years or so. I managed to head that off with my two boys, they work for a living! One as a carpenter, one as a plumber.
But, we've got most kids who just get everything handed to them, they're rarely (if ever) punished for anything, they're told "they're special" (but no reason for it - just "you're special" from everyone from Mr. Rogers on down the line...) and they're not pushed to better themselves at anything.
Then, look at education. "Social promotion" is a reality, kids fail courses and get moved along anyhow. Academics are falling by the wayside in favour of "bilingual education" (let's focus on form instead of content. The best textbooks were written in 1975 or earlier - when content was king,) shop courses are being taken out of cirricula everywhere (which is a pity. Not everyone is cut out to work with their minds - and some of us who can still like working with their hands. I know I do... High school is the place to find this out!) and what little is left isn't being taught. Hell, let's look at core English courses - when I took a uni-level English course some three and a half years ago, my first drafts for essays and papers were better-constructed than most kids'
final submissions! The only trouble I had with that course was that the instructor was a flaming Liberal - "so open-minded her brain fell out." I had to haul her up in front of the Dean a couple of times, since she failed a couple of my papers because she didn't agree with my opinion - something I also had to deal with in high school (and handled the same way - we go to the principal's office. Now.) It certainly wasn't for use of language, spelling, grammar, logical construction of arguments and statements, or anything like that - she just didn't like what I had to say.
Seems to me that this also contributes to the decline of education - the lack of "intellectual honesty" among faculty discourages independent thought in the student body, and we end up with little drones who just parrot what they were taught. The most common question on tests I took in school was "Why?" If you take a position, you'd better be prepared to defend it, "just because" wasn't an acceptable answer. This encouraged thinking, which is a good thing (and we don't see enough of it anymore.)
Since kids can't - or won't - think for themselves anymore, they just see themselves as being pigeonholed into a spot and they think they can't get out of it (they're wrong - you can recover from a lot. But, they never flex their mental muscle, so they don't
know what they can and can't do. Thus, they never
make the attempt.)
And we wonder why so many "junior felons" come from welfare families...
You could use the extra money to buy some shrimp. 
