> And is it really plausible that more men are disabled today compared to 15 years ago? Yes, that seems plausible to me. For example, there have been a number

> And is it really plausible that more men are disabled today compared to 15 years ago? Yes, that seems plausible to me. For example, there have been a number of combat operations the intervening 15 years; if someone left the military due to injury, they would be counted in the disability figures, but not in the employment ones. NPR did a big story on the factors behind this a while ago: http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/ http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/ Another big factor is that states are incentivized to move people off of welfare (which the individual states pay for) onto disability (which the nation pays for through Social Security). So a rise in disabled workers has also coincided with a decline of people on welfare -- it's just private companies shuffling people around without improving their condition. To be fair, the NPR article was not without controversy. A number of groups objected to the way it was presented, including former Social Security commissioners. http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/04/18/177745599/former-social-security-commissioners-and-others-respond-to-our-disability-story http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/04/18/177745599/forme...