[Mari]

Hi,

I found this one paragraph in this article to be useful.
The article wonders why more people are on disability than they were 30 or 40 years ago.

This paragraph tries to explain why:

But from a labor-economy perspective, the numbers are perplexing enough even at face value.
Did the American workplace once accommodate mentally ill people more readily than it does today?

It's not hard to believe. As long as a worker made his quota, the clang of the factory floor drowned out many personality traits—illiteracy, poor skills, alcohol and drug abuse—that in different settings would be liabilities.
Mental illness could easily make that list.

Today's multitasking, language- and tech-intensive, customer-facing workplace challenges all sorts of workers, and perhaps the mentally ill more than many.

http://www.slate.com/id/2266819/

This makes perfect sense to me.

M.

[OhKay]

I think that the unemployment rate is also contributing. People suffering from MH and medical problems have been more likely to file since they have not been able to provide for themselves and their families adequately.

The system is absolutely inundated with new applicants right now.

Thank for this, Mari. Definitely contributing factors.

[waves]

yes. not to mention, my parents keep telling me the "pace" has picked up.... due to technology. i mean it's a generation observation, i'm passing it on from them... but it sounds like it. technology has made so many things so much more immediate, you have to be

on top of it
running with the ball
hit the ground running
up with the times
with the program (no pun intended!)


and, respectively,
it
the ball
running
the times
and
the program

evolve at a rate that is orders of magnitude larger than progress was, say, 50 years ago.

the industrial revolution marked a huge increase in demand on the working class... but now...

we are in the era of the informational/technological revolution.

And...

God help us, please, because we clearly don't know how to help ourselves any more.

~ waves ~