An article from The Washington Post (gift link): “Social Security to drop obsolete jobs used to deny disability benefits.” An excerpt:
For decades, the Social Security Administration has denied thousands of people disability benefits by claiming they could find jobs that have all but vanished from the U.S. economy — such occupations as nut sorter, pneumatic tube operator and microfilm processor.In 2022 I wrote a post about a Washington Post article on this same theme: Nut sorter, dowel inspector, egg processor. I was especially drawn to listing for pen and pencil repairer. See also the work of can reconditioning.
On Monday, the agency will eliminate all but a handful of those unskilled jobs from a long-outdated database used to decide who gets benefits and who is denied, ending a practice that advocates have long decried as unfair and inaccurate.
comments: 4
Compared to Europe and Canada, the US very much devalues social workers and teachers. And disability workers. Then devalues disabled people too. Except right after a war when crippled veterans come home.
I dimly recall a movie about a guy in care where Hollywood had to make a point of his caregiver being a former professional football hero.
Maybe it's not politically correct for me to say so, since I'm not a US citizen, but it sure annoys me.
I’m going to get pretty far from the theme of obsolete jobs, but I’m reminded of the many stories of American veterans with obvious symptoms of PTSD who cannot get a diagnosis, because there then would have to be a plan of treatment. An animated adaptation of the story of Gilgamesh put out by the Department of Veterans Affairs has a clownish doctor unable to come up with a diagnosis. In the absence of one, he tells Gilgamesh to exercise and drink less coffee. The animation has been removed, but it’s still available at the Internet Archive. Links here:
https://mleddy.blogspot.com/2006/12/gilgamesh-travesty.html
Hi Michael, I guess I got a little far from jobs myself, because I was blinded by seeing the social worker's incompetence regarding jobs, enabled by the public.
I am still annoyed by the memoir of the quadriplegic cartoonist Callahan, where a social worker genuinely didn't know that a welfare diet can cause a bloated belly, and teased him about being fat.
The incompetence around making the animation bugs me. I am glad you remarked on it. I guess "freedom of speech" enables us to feel caring about the world.
Luckily, I took Gilgamesh in my college poetry class, otherwise I would still not know it. I was so moved that I ended my paper with something like "let us leave him standing forlorn at that wall" (I forget) which lowered my mark for not being an academic conclusion. We didn't get into it in the depth that you did.
I liked the Achilles in Vietnam book which I ordered to keep, on your recommendation, years ago.
I'm glad you found that book valuable, Sean. I think it's one of the most useful discussions of a work of literature I've ever read.
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