Rov_Scam
3hr ago
Forbidding one thing necessarily means requiring something else. One can just say that parents should have the ability to forbid their children from having their own children.
Rov_Scam
5hr ago
That's a pretty misleading description of what's going on. Most of the outrage seems focused on the attempt to prosecute the doctor, which requires that New York extradite her to Louisiana. The rest of it centers around the hypocrisy that Louisiana had a pre-Dobbs parental consent law, which would suggest that parents have the authority to determine whether their children carry a child to term. If a parent can veto the decision to abort, they would presumable also be able to veto the decision to have the baby. I haven't seen any commentary suggesting that the mother was right to surrepetitiously abort the fetus.
Rov_Scam
7hr ago
This is the kind of thing that AI should theoretically be good at, since members of congress and their dates of birth aren't too hard to find. Actual AI, however, seems to have a hard time with this. Gemini is evidently only capable of repeating what was already published as an article, so if there isn't some website that specifically says what the average was in, say, 1995, then it can't figure it out. Deepseek is slightly better in that it actually gives the answer, though it gives contradictory results within the same prompt. Based on the crappy results I did get, it seems like the Democratic average age has consistently been a couple years higher than the Republican average age for some time.
Rov_Scam
9hr ago
Amusingly, black people saved NYC by electing Adams who arrested the Floyd crime wave by allowing the NYPD to do their jobs.
I wouldn't give Adams too much credit here. Pittsburgh crime statistics are as follows:
2018: 58 homicides, 103 non-fatal shootings 2019: 38 homicides, 113 non-fatal shootings 2020: 50 homicides, 147 non-fatal shootings 2021: 56 homicides, 170 non-fatal shootings 2022: 71 homicides, 137 non-fatal shootings 2023: 52 homicides, 118 non-fatal shootings 2024: 42 homicides, 83 non-fatal shootings
So far in 2025, as of May 31 there were 11 homicides and 33 non-fatal shootings. I don't want to project that out since crime usually goes up during the summer, but so far it looks like the downward trend is continuing. Of note is that Ed Gainey became mayor in 2022, and was elected largely as a response to perceived heavy-handed police tactics by Bill Peduto during the 2020 protests. He was supported by all the lefties, though his record from his time in the state house suggests he's more of a mainstream Democrat.
In the meantime, the police department has been in complete disarray. One of Gainey's first moves in office was to replace the retiring police chief with a veteran of the Pittsburgh force who had since moved to Florida, chasing a promotion. This lasted exactly 18 months, at which point the chief retired because he wanted to ref NCAA basketball. Compounding the problem was that it came to light that he had made a deal with Gainey upon being hired that he'd be allowed to ref basketball 18 months on the job. As critics pointed out, it would be ridiculous for a full-time police chief to be on the road 100 days a year, and the mayor should have known that. Worse, the 18 months was calculated because that was the point at which he could retire with a chief's pension. Basically, Gainey got played. A new chief from out of town was soon named, but he withdrew his name from consideration shortly thereafter, presumably because he found out how dysfunctional the administration was. There's zero chance a permanent chief will be named before the new administration takes over next year.
Even before the chief left, things weren't exactly going swimmingly. Officer shortages have led to dramatic reductions in service. Police stopped responding to alarms, and reduced their response time to "within 24 hours" for anything that wasn't an active emergency. Precincts are no longer manned overnight. Foot patrols have been increased Downtown and on the South Side, but this is due more to political pressure than any initiative on Gainey's part (crime aside, Gainey's entire modus operandi was to not do anything until a bad news story or complaints from the politically connected forced his hand). His response to criticism has been to publicly call out local journalists he doesn't like for only focusing on the bad things, citing overall crime reductions, and ham-fisted cheerleading. "Who here doesn't think our police are doing a good job? Don't we have a beautiful city! Why don't you guys ever report on how much Downtown has come back since the pandemic?" In other words, stuff that takes about three minutes and zero effort, all of it in the same MLK tone of voice that he uses ad nauseam, wherein he acts like the new road paving schedule is a monumental achievement in civic governance.
I'm not going to blame Gainey for all of the police department's woes, since most of them are downstream of a nationwide officer shortage over which he has no control. But I'm also not going to give him credit for reducing the crime rate, which seem to have also gone down as part of a nationwide trend over which he has no control. To my knowledge, no one has ever done an analysis on whether "tough on crime" mayors have any statistical advantage over "defund the police" mayors when it comes to lowering the crime rate, and it seems like the biggest argument against the defund mayors is that the crime rate didn't go down as much as in other places. So I'm not giving Adams any credit here, and I wouldn't expect a sharp rise in the crime rate if some lefty gets elected.
Rov_Scam
11hr ago
That's pretty much how I feel about all of Adobe's so-called Neural Filters. The only one that really adds anything is the one that colorizes black and white photos, but even that's kind of pointless, because other than as a cool gimmick there's really no need to colorize old photos. People still shoot black and white! This is why some of the AI seriously fails to impress me; it has no imagination. For instance, if I see a low-resolution image of a person's face, I can't make out a lot of details, but I have enough experience with faces to imagine what those details might look like. It might not be accurate to life, but at least I can do it. All AI "upscaling" does is smooth out defects. It doesn't have the imagination to add plausible detail. I'm not going to be able to zoom in enough to get a realistic image that shows the texture of hair or skin, just smoothed-out AI slop that isn't much better, if any than simply resizing the image. It also doesn't do dust and scratch removal any better than the existing tools, which are mostly useless and nowhere near manual removal.
Rov_Scam
18hr ago
Where are the 30-something conservatives? If you look at the US House members in their 30s, there are 21 Democrats and 14 Republicans. There are only two people under 40 in the Senate, one Democrat and one Republican. Considering that of the 435 members of the House, 400 of them are 40 or older, I think the correct answer is that there just aren't that many people in their 30s involved in politics.
Rov_Scam
3d ago
Theologically serious Catholics, nowadays, have to vote Republican because, of the two parties, it is the only one that isn't openly hostile to all of the bedrock elements of the faith.
Only if you selectively define "bedrock elements" to include only what's politically convenient. Is JD Vance actually Catholic? He repeated rumors about Haitian immigrants he knew to be untrue for the specific purpose of demonizing them for political gain. He has, to my knowledge, never once apologized for this or walked back his statements, instead doubling down on them and insisting on calling them "illegals" not because they arrived here illegally, but because he disagreed with the political mechanism by which they were allowed to come. Again, he didn't do this because he was mistaken but because either he personally doesn't like them due to his own racism or because he cynically believes that other people are racist enough that he can exploit them for his own political ends. While the church's position on immigration doesn't contain any bright lines, you'd have to squint really hard to claim that productive, law-abiding people are causing such a burden to the United States that we are justified in deporting them to a country steeped in as much violence, poverty, and political instability as Haiti.
Or if you'd prefer bright lines, let's just point to capital punishment, an issue on which the church has taken an unequivocal stance for 50 years. This isn't merely something where Republicans want to maintain the status quo; they actually advocate expanding the death penalty. At least when Democrats want to expand abortion access it isn't based on the idea that more abortions is a good thing.
I say this as a Catholic who went to a small, Catholic, liberal arts college largely populated by serious Catholics. Some of my friends were liberals, some conservatives, and I don't believe for a second that abortion or anything else is the defining thing that's keeping them from voting Democrat. I'm still in contact with a lot of these people, and the ones that didn't switch to Democrat in the wake of Trump are all aboard the Trump Train, defending every policy of his without question. They spent college defending the Iraq War as totally justified, and I can't tell you how many times I heard the traditional conservative caricature about how poor people just didn't work hard enough and taxes should be lower to avoid penalizing the most talented people in society. I don't think that these people "aren't true Catholics", I just wish conservative Catholics would stop blowing smoke up my ass because of the abortion issue, or gay marriage, or whatever. The Democratic Party could reverse course on these issues tomorrow and I'd still have to hear the same bullshit about immigrants, poor people, urban blacks, and anyone else they think is ruining America.
Rov_Scam
3d ago
- 1984 — within 2 years, according to Jane's Defence Weekly
- 1984 — 7 years, per West German intelligence
- 1992 — 3 years, per Netanyahu
- 1995 — less than 5 years, per Netanyahu
- 1996 — 4 years, per Shimon Peres
- 1998 — within 5 years, per Donald Rumsfeld
- 1999 — within 5 years, per the Israeli military
- 2001 — less than 4 years, per the Israeli Minister of Defence
- 2002 — capability on par with North Korea, per the CIA
- 2003 — by 2005, per Israeli military
- 2006 — 16 days, per US State Department
- 2009 — 6–18 months, per Ehud Barak
- 2010 — 1–3 years, per Israeli government
- 2011 — within months, per IAEA
- 2013 — by 2016, per Israeli intelligence
- 2013 — 1.9–2.2 months, per Institute for Science and International Security
- 2014 — 6 months, per Arms Control
- 2015 — 1.7 months, per Iran Watch
- 2015 — 45–87 days, per Bipartisan Policy Center
- 2015 — 3 months, per Washington Institute
Then the nuclear deal was put in place, and estimates seemed to be in agreement that the breakout time would be weeks to months with out the deal, a year with the deal. Then COVID happened and nobody cared.
- 2021 — a matter of weeks, per Antony Blinken
At this point I'm too lazy to keep checking for additional estimates, but you get the idea.
Rov_Scam
4d ago
Do you remember the 2006 and 2008 elections? Republicans lost 14 senate seats and 52 house seats, plus the presidency. While there were certainly other issues bogging down the Republicans, their steadfastness in a losing war was the big issue.
Rov_Scam
4d ago
Presumably game theory should keep that from happening. If one assumes that the cop is going to pull over the last person in line, then no one should want to be the last person in line, and the line shouldn't form to begin with. The correct way to do this is to wait until the speeder gets a couple hundred yards ahead. That way, if there's a cop he's just going to pull out as soon as the guy passes him and you'll be safely behind. You still need to keep him within sight though, in case he makes a turn.
Rov_Scam
4d ago
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If nobody is around it doesn't matter, though I do anyway out of force of habit. People learning to drive should always do it to develop the habit.
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Depends on your definition of a full stop. If you're technically still rolling but practically stopped, I'd say that counts if you're in an area with little to no traffic. To me a "full stop" would be to the point that you feel a slight jolt unless you know how to do a proper chauffeur stop.
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I don't have a problem with taking an extra five or ten, but I don't think you have a right to complain if you get stuck behind someone who is doing the limit.
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No. The left lane is for passing. It's also for letting people onto the road from a merge or from making a right from a side road. It's okay to ride the left if you're consistently going above the speed of traffic in the right-hand lane, as it's safer than constantly merging back and forth, though if someone wants to go faster than you you should move over and let them by.
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It depends on the situation. In urban freeway driving, it's not a 100% guarantee that someone is going to let you in, and you have to be ready to just move. Assuming it's safe to do so, cutting off one person is better than blocking the lane while you wait to be let in.
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No, the Categorical Imperative and all that.
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Per @gattsuru, you should turn your headlights on earlier than you think you need to, and if you have automatic headlights, set them to their most sensitive setting. I've been pulled over at dusk for not having headlights on when there was more than enough light for good visibility. Keep in mind that it's as much about being seen as it is seeing, and any time headlights would be noticeable above the normal glare of the sun helps with that.
Rov_Scam
5d ago
Illegal immigrant workers are the market distortion...
No they aren't, at least not any more than importing any other economic input is a market distortion. Telling an employer that he can't use labor from Mexico isn't fundamentally different than telling him he can't use iron ore from Australia, or electronic components from South Korea. You can make public policy arguments for why certain market distortions are necessary, but they're only distortions if you presuppose some kind of Peronist ideal where the only economic activity that matters is that which takes place inside your own borders. As @AlexanderTurok says, MAGA Maoism.
Rov_Scam
5d ago
Keep in mind that my analysis is based on the subset of people who applied for disability, and not the population at large. Further, blue collar workers with musculoskeletal problems accounted for 50% of approvals, not 50% of total claims. This number may actually be a bit high, since most of the death bed cases were sent to a special unit that I didn't deal with. As a proportion of total claims, I'd say they were no higher than 10%. For volume of total claims, the generally unhealthy accounted for the highest proportion, followed by psycho kids and complex cases. This is taking into account that death bed cases had enough volume to merit their own unit to expedite them, though since I didn't work there I can't comment on volume.
While I don't doubt that blue collar work is harder on the body than other work, disability isn't particularly common. In my current job, I defend industrial equipment manufacturers and contractors in products liability cases, and out of hundreds of cases I've handled, I've seen maybe three or four where the plaintiff was receiving disability, or had even made a disability claim, and this is for a subset of the population that worked industrial jobs for decades. You also need to take into consideration that while blue collar work is more likely to lead to legal disability, that likelihood is largely independent of whether it's likely to contribute to the underlying medical condition. People who work office jobs where they sit on their ass all day don't quit work and apply for disability because of bum knees, and even if they did they'd be denied. It's not that the jobs causes the disability so much as it is that the disability prevents them from doing the job.
Rov_Scam
5d ago
There is a farm near me that a lot of kids wanted to work at because they hired 14 year olds. Few lasted. You don't get paid by the hour, you get paid by the bushel, and it's well under a dollar per bushel. You aren't chatting with your friends because no talking is allowed. Sunup to sundown every day, and you can forget about taking a vacation. And this was a family farm with a grocery store and a pumpkin patch with hayrides, not some agribusiness with thousands of acres.
Rov_Scam
5d ago
Iran has been weeks away from having a functional bomb for the last 20 years. It may sound like a joke, but I'm guessing it's their actual policy. There's currently a fatwah against nuclear weapons, and while Western ears may hear that as a half-hearted "we really mean we aren't developing nukes", the Iranian government violating its own fatwah would cause a loss of credibility that could be fatal to the regime. The goal appears to be "nuclear capable", meaning that if there were some existential threat, like a full-bore invasion, they could quickly produce a nuclear weapon, because at that point the benefits clearly outweigh the costs. Unless Israel seriously ratchets up these attacks, I doubt we'll ever see Iran openly testing nuclear weapons or making public announcements that they have them. Because if they do that apropos of nothing, what do they have to gain? People get even more pissed off than they already are, and Saudi Arabia starts its own nuclear program.
The categories aren't really correct. 1 and 2 don't make sense because disability is a binary, and the benefit amount is determined at the financial qualification stage. This is the preliminary stage where SSA makes sure that claimants are legally qualified and has to be completed before they'll send it to adjudication. Once we start considering medical eligibility it's a binary; you don't get more money because you're "more disabled" or whatever. The sole exception would be that there's an optimization that can be made for people who continue to work but make below the financial eligibility threshold, but that really has nothing to do with the determination office. 3 isn't really a category because I had no way of knowing whether someone was using an attorney, what kind of advice they were getting, or whether they genuinely thought they were disabled. I'd break down the claimants into the following categories:
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The Classic Case: The first category consists of the typical 50+ blue-collar worker (usually) who has some kind of musculoskeletal disorder (back problems being the most common) that prevents them from doing heavy labor. When I was there, these probably constituted half of our approvals. These people were genuinely hurt, but may or may not have been disabled, depending on the severity of their condition. For example (real case, though my memory isn't precise), Larry was a 55 year old black guy who worked as a welder for most of the 20 previous years, no other employment. His back problems had been developing for some time, causing him to miss work. About a year prior he had back surgery and was off work for a while recovering, and felt good doing work around the house. He tried to go back to work once he was medically cleared, but he only lasted a few weeks. He wasn't having the constant pain he was having before, but 8 hours of bending over, kneeling, and crawling around exacerbated the pain, which went away with rest. The medical records were about what one would expect from someone experiencing the symptoms he described. Easy approval.
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The Generally Unhealthy: People with myriad legitimate health problems that don't rise to the level of a disability. These people are usually over the age of 40, can be male or female, and have significant employment history, though mostly at the kind of jobs that don't pay particularly well. They have HBP. They have diabetes. They have fibromyalgia. They have back pain. They have a heart condition. They're obese (usually, though not always). These tend to be the most annoying cases to deal with because the application asks them to specify the conditions for which they're claiming disability for, but if (more like when) we find they have 500 other problems we have to ask if it affects their ability to work, and of course it does, so now we have to keep requesting records from doctors that take forever to receive and don't contain any usable information. The worst part is that they are all on antidepressants they got from a PCP and they've never seen a psychiatrist. So when they tell us their anxiety and depression affects their ability to work we have to schedule as psych workup, which takes forever to schedule because these people always live in rural areas with one guy who's willing to accept the low rates we pay for them to fill out significantly more paperwork than usual. Once they actually see somebody who confirms that they aren't so anxious they can't go to the grocery store without freaking out, they get denied.
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The Complex Cases: People who obviously can't work but only due to complicated situations that are hard to qualify under the existing criteria. People with lingering stroke recovery symptoms, people with rare auto-immune disorders, rare diabetic conditions, people who are fine most of the time but have conditions that flare up every couple months and put them in the hospital for 2 weeks, during which time they lose their jobs. It's 50/50 whether these are approved or denied upon initial determination. If they get someone who looks at the big picture, they'll be approved; if they get someone who is a stickler for the rules, they'll be denied. All supervisors would tell you to deny these people. If they appeal, they'll almost certainly be approved.
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The Psycho Kids: These are people under the age of 30 who have never had a job that pays above minimum wage and no education beyond high school who are claiming disability due to vague depression/anxiety. Again, they're taking medication but it's unlikely they've ever seen an actual mental health professional, and if they did it was something like they talked to a therapist once or twice. They certainly aren't receiving any regular psychiatric treatment, and no suicide attempts or hospitalizations. These are almost always rural whites. They are invariably denials.
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The Accidental Cases: These are similar to the first type of case except the claimant is younger and is claiming disability not based on a degenerative condition but on the inability to due his job following a traumatic injury. they are usually misinformed about the law, however, and think that they're disabled because they can't go back to their normal job, and are usually under this impression because they worked with an older guy who got it. Unfortunately for them, as long as they're capable of doing a sedentary job, they aren't disabled. One guy, who broke his back in a motorcycle accident, told me his doctor told him he wouldn't be able to be a mechanic anymore and should do something with computers. He then jokingly told me that he didn't know anything about computers. Though he didn't realize it, this was practically an admission from his doctor that he was still able to work. These cases are almost always denials.
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The True Psychos: These are the real psych cases, almost always SSI, usually involving younger or homeless claimants. Mental retardation, schizophrenia, anxiety/depression serious enough to end in multiple hospitalizations, severe bipolar disorder. Children usually also have serious behavioral problems at home or at school. Usually approvals, with a few weird denials mixed in due to the occasional odd circumstance.
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The Death Bed Cases: These are people with terminal diseases who aren't going to survive for much longer. There's an entire division that deals with nothing but these to get the approvals in faster, though in some cases there's an expedited process where they can start receiving benefits before full approval. Always approved.
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The One-Shot Cases: People who have one weird condition that obviously doesn't qualify them, but they apply anyway on the off chance they're approved. One woman in her early 30s applied because of heavy vaginal bleeding. This also includes people who have already retired, get some condition, and apply for SSDI to top up their pensions before they qualify for regular benefits. One guy who had a desk job with the state Auditor General's office tried applying because he started having mini-strokes after he retired, though he was hard-pressed to explain how they would have theoretically prevented him from working had he not been retired. These are denials.
I hesitate to categorize them based on genuine cases versus those that are simply trying to game the system because, with the possible exception of the psycho kids and the one-shot cases, I don't really think that anyone is consciously trying to game the system. The rest of these people are either genuinely disabled or genuinely think they're disabled. The classic cases are actually disabled but will go back to work if they can. The generally unhealthy aren't disabled but are convinced they are, the complex cases may or may not be disabled but they can be forgiven for thinking they might be, the accidental cases think they are based on a misunderstanding of the law, the true psychos are disabled but might not know it themselves, same with the death bed cases. Even the one shot cases have a lot of people think that they're disabled based on the simplistic formula of medical condition + makes my job difficult = permanent disability.
And even if some people are consciously trying to game the system, their cases are so obviously bullshit that no one trained to adjudicate them would ever consider approving them. These articles can cite various doctors and lawyers all they want, but even with coaching, nobody who is willing to "retire" because $945/month is forthcoming is intelligent enough to keep up an elaborate ruse for decades. In my career since, I've had to prepare witnesses for depositions, and while I'm not going to say that witnesses never lie in depositions, I can say that it's not because of anything theur attorneys told them to say. Properly preparing a witness for deposition takes days, unless they're a corporate representative who has testified several times before. Even for a corporate witness, it's not easy to prepare them to answer questions in a way that isn't inadvertently damaging. And these are people with college degrees and careers at the highest levels of business. Some hillbilly who barely graduated high school isn't going to be able to effectively fake disability no matter how many doctors and lawyers talk to him, because he's not going to know how to answer the questions. I'd be more worried about a legitimate claimant being denied because they gave the answers they thought the adjudicator wanted to hear than someone who gets denied because they answered honestly. Unless they have a really sophisticated understanding of how the process works, they're not going to be able to do it, and the factors are complicated enough that they're not going to get such an understanding. Even the people here, or who write psych blogs, or articles from NPR, or who are physicians treating claimants, seem to have such an understanding.
Edit - Pinging @ThomasdelVasto
Rov_Scam
6d ago
There's an entire list of unskilled sedentary jobs as they appear in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles that "exist in significant numbers in the national economy". As long as someone is able to do one of these jobs, they aren't disabled (assuming they're under 50 and thus can be expected to adjust to new work). Most of these are obscure specialized jobs that involve some kind of industrial assembly that con be done entirely sitting down. An example:
Label Pinker
Tends machine equipped with pinking attachment that cuts strips of labeling material into individual labels: Positions roll of material on holder and inserts end in feeding mechanism. Turns dial to set counter for specified number of labels to be cut. Starts machine and observes cut labels to detect cutting defects. Removes defective labels and notifies machine fixer to adjust machine. Packs specified number of labels in box. May tend machine that cuts labels without pinking and be designated Label Cutter (narrow fabrics). GOE: 06.04.05 STRENGTH: S GED: R2 M1 L1 SVP: 2 DLU: 77
The relevant symbols below are that the strength is listed as sedentary, defined as:
Exerting up to 10 pounds of force occasionally (Occasionally: activity or condition exists up to 1/3 of the time) and/or a negligible amount of force frequently (Frequently: activity or condition exists from 1/3 to 2/3 of the time) to lift, carry, push, pull, or otherwise move objects, including the human body. Sedentary work involves sitting most of the time, but may involve walking or standing for brief periods of time. Jobs are sedentary if walking and standing are required only occasionally and all other sedentary criteria are met.
And the Specific Vocational Preparation is 2, meaning that for the specific job, the typical worker would be able to achieve an average level of proficiency in less than 1 month. There are a ton of jobs like this you've never heard of, though whether or not they are actually realistic options for the claimant is irrelevant. From what I recall, the law specifically states that it doesn't matter whether such a job is actually available or whether they'd actually be able to get the job if it were available. A lot of people think this is ridiculous, but it underscores the point that disability is for people who physically can't work at any job they are qualified to do, not for people who physically can't work available jobs that they have a chance of actually getting. Saying "but there aren't any jobs as a label pinker" is basically saying that the reason you don't have a job is because you can't find one, not because you can't do one.
Rov_Scam
6d ago
I wouldn't put too much stock in that article. The treating physician has very little say in whether a claimant qualifies for disability. Disability isn't a medical condition, it's a legal status based on ability to work, and ability to work can't always be determined by a medical diagnosis (and when it can, that's what the listings are for). The determination of disability is made by and adjudicator in consultation with a doctor employed by the state. This doctor does not actually examine the patient but reviews medical records to find evidence of limitation. He offers an opinion of what the claimant is capable of based on the records, but the legal determination is ultimately up to the adjudicator.
I would also note that it's incredibly uncommon for any treating physician to offer an opinion about a claimant's ability to work, or even to actively participate in the process. Protocol calls for the adjudicator to attempt to call the physician who treats the condition they're claiming disability for, and the only times a doctor was ever willing to speak to me were in cases where the patient was in such bad shape that their disability was almost a given regardless, with the exception of one where a woman had an unusual condition but no money for regular treatment and an ER doctor actually got on the line to explain it to me. Other than that, they aren't even willing to fill out the forms we send them, and take a month to even send the medical records. Occasionally they'll mention in the chart that the patient told them they were applying for disability, but that's usually as far as it goes.
What we looked for wasn't whether the doctor commented on disability specifically, but on their ability to work. Even this was rare, though. There were occasional instances of orders not to lift above so many pounds or walk too far or whatever, but the determination was made based more on clinical signs than on opinions. Even when a physician made a clear statement that the claimant couldn't continue to do their job, our doctors would note the opinion, say they gave it "appropriate" weight, and make their own assessment based on objective markers. If the objective markers weren't there, our doctor wasn't going to recommend disability based on the treating physician's say so.
As far as education goes, that's not something our doctor would touch, or even look at. If you're under 50 and capable of doing sedentary work, you aren't getting disability regardless of your education level. "Education" is kind of a misnomer anyway; whether or not you can do a job doesn't depend on your education level but whether you've done the job in the past 20 years, and the level of Specific Vocational Preparation required as defined by the Dictionary of Occupational Titles. At this point it gets complicated, and beyond age 50 we start looking at transferable skills and the ability to adjust to other work. So you can have a law degree from Harvard but if you're over 50 and did manual labor your whole career it doesn't matter. If you're a high school graduate and only have done office jobs your entire career it doesn't matter. If you're under age 50 and are capable of doing unskilled sedentary work, you aren't getting disability except in unusual circumstances.
Rov_Scam
7d ago
I worked for the state disability bureau in 2011, and I can confirm that your theory is basically correct. There was a huge application backlog stemming from the recession, and a huge chunk of it was people in their 50s who were laid off from blue-collar jobs and claimed bad backs, shoulders, etc. from slinging sheetrock for 40 years or whatever. The reason the bulk of the beneficiaries are in their 50s is because the law makes it very difficult to qualify if you are under 50; you have to either have a condition that meets a defined listing (and the listings are for the kinds of things that if you have no one's going to question your ability to work), or to be completely incapable of doing sedentary work. If you're over 50, it's assumed you can't adjust to other work, so you can only be sent back to a job you've done in the past 20 years. In some cases, it may be determined that you can do lighter work similar to what you did before (e.g., an auto mechanic (medium duty grade) can work as a tech at a quick lube place (light duty grade)) but that's pretty rare. If you're over 50 and already have an office job you're also out of luck, since you're effectively given the same standard as an under 50.
So a lot of people who were laid off, especially from the construction industry, especially those who were close to retirement anyway, just filed for whatever injuries they had accumulated over the years and said that was the reason they stopped working. To be fair, though, a lot of these people ended up going back to work while their claims were pending, so I don't want to paint with too broad a brush. The difference between then and now is that people above 50 but below 62 were part of the largest generational cohort in US history, so there were simply more of them. In 2008 only the oldest boomers had reached 62m and the youngest were still in their 40s. By 2020, everyone born before 1958 was 62 or older, and the youngest were already in their mid 50s. This gives 6 years worth of people to make claims, with the number going down every year.
A lot of the Boomers who retired during COVID did so because they already had enough savings to retire. The ones who didn't weren't likely to be laid off either, since COVID unemployment hit the service industry mostly and didn't really affect much else. Car mechanics and pipefitters weren't getting laid off, and if they were they were the ones at the bottom of the totem pole, not the ones who had been in the union for decades. The 2020 recession was also sharp and brief, unlike the 2008 recession where the recovery seemed to drag on for years until the job market felt normal again. It wasn't until 2013 that extended unemployment relief was ended.
So yeah, now that most of these people are on regular Social Security, and there hasn't been a comparable recession to cause a flood of new applicants, and the generational cohort of people in their 50s is smaller than it was before, there's no reason to have expected claims to keep rising. The 2010s projections were hitting right as the flood of applications was already peaking and about to decline.
Rov_Scam
7d ago
I guarantee you they would disappear entirely if that were the case, since cyclists don't ride on the freeway.
Rov_Scam
7d ago
I don't entirely disagree with your general point, but metro stops don't have to be the big stations we usually associate with them. This stop in suburban Pittsburgh (and within walking distance of the home of wannabe Trump assassin Thomas Crooks) is pretty common and not too expensive to build. A lot of the country streetcar stops used to be like this before they were removed in the 1960s. The only catch is that the train has to have an additional door in the front to accommodate the lower-level of the station, and as a consequence, people who intend on getting off at those stops need to make sure they ride in the front car.
Rov_Scam
7d ago
tl;dr I need to get to work on time or pick up food for dinner, I'm not interested in being delayed or inconvenienced to accommodate some bum or some stranger's vanity hobby.
I can count on one hand the number of minutes per month I'm delayed by a cyclist. On the other hand, every time the Penguins or Pirates play a weekday home game I'm treated to at least ten minutes of extra sitting in traffic so a bunch of suburbanites can treat themselves to a night of overpriced disappointment. And I'm just trying to get home or the grocery store; I'm sure there are other people out there who have jobs at the hospital to get to, or something even more important than my convenience. So if people's recreation getting in the way of convenience is the standard to set, then cyclists on public roads should be way down at the bottom of the list of things we need to get rid of.
Rov_Scam
7d ago
And if you can tell me where exactly in the Pennsylvania Vehicle Code it says that the posted limits are only suggestions and motorists are free to drive whatever speed they want provided it lies within the engineering design speed then I'd say you have a point. But you seem to have missed mine. I'm not arguing that we should ticket everyone who takes five or ten miles per hour, just that those people can't turn around and complain when a cyclist does something that's technically illegal but otherwise makes sense and isn't particularly unsafe.
Is this really necessary? Presumably the reason they're low-IQ is because you disagree with their reasoning, and not because you have access to information that hasn't been made public. As much as I'd like to, there's a reason I don't refer to Trump as the moron-in-chief or whatever.
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