Across large swaths of the country, disability has become a force that has reshaped scores of mostly white, almost exclusively rural communities, where as many as one-third of working-age adults live on monthly disability checks, according to a Washington Post analysis of Social Security Administration statistics.
Rural America experienced the most rapid increase in disability rates over the past decade, the analysis found, amid broad growth in disability that was partly driven by demographic changes that are now slowing as disabled baby-boomers age into retirement.
The increases have been worse in working-class areas, worse still in communities where residents are older, and worst of all in places with shrinking populations and few immigrants.
All but two of the 102 counties with the highest rates where at minimum about one in six working-age adults receive disability were rural, the analysis found, although the vast majority of people on disability live in cities and suburbs.
The counties spread out from northern Michigan, through the boot heel of Missouri and Appalachia, and into the Deep South are largely racially homogeneous. Sixteen of the counties were majority black, but the remaining counties were, on average, 90 percent white. In the 2016 presidential election, the majority-white counties voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump, whose rhetoric of a rotting nation with vast joblessness often reflects lived experiences in these communities.
Most people arent employed when they apply for disability one reason applicant rates skyrocketed during the recession. Full-time employment would, in fact, disqualify most applicants. And once on it, few ever get off, their ranks uncounted in the national unemployment rate, which doesnt include people on disability.
The decision to apply, in many cases, is a decision to effectively abandon working altogether. For the severely disabled, this choice is, in essence, made for them. But for others, its murkier. Aches accumulate. Years pile up. Job prospects diminish.
