思考与写作apps.npr.org
不适合工作：美国伤残救济体系调查
Unfit for work
2013 — 2025，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
这是 NPR 2013 年的互动新闻专题《Unfit for Work》，调查美国残障福利制度：随着体力型工作岗位消失，越来越多没有其他出路的人靠申请残障认定来退出劳动力市场，一些县甚至有三分之一以上的成年人领取残障补助。报道通过数据和人物故事揭示了这一现象背后的经济与制度困境。
为什么经久不衰：它用数据新闻的形式揭示了一个持续恶化、随自动化和 AI 冲击愈发相关的结构性问题，十二年后仍被推上首页，说明其洞察至今未被解决。
HN 评论精选
自动化取代劳动力使残障福利成为过渡性补丁，根本出路是全民基本收入
以经济状况调查为基础的社会救助，是依赖劳动力作为主要增长投入的经济的残留物。随着经济投入日益向资本（通过自动化）倾斜，大多数劳动者将逐渐无法以维持生计的最低工资被雇用，只能依赖并滥用残障等社会福利。唯一的长期解决方案是基本收入制度：奖励消费，让市场继续奖励创新与效率；没有为消费输血的再分配机制，财富进一步集中，市场将彻底崩溃。
FD3SA查看英文原文
Means-tested social assistance is now a vestigial remnant of an economy strictly dependent upon labor as its primary input for growth. As the share of economic inputs tips increasingly in favor of capital (via automation), most laborers will steadily become unemployable at a subsistence-level minimum wage. As a result, we will see dependence and abuses of means-tested social welfare by these laborers who can no longer participate in the market. The only long term solution is a basic income system, which rewards consumption and allows the market to continuously reward innovation and efficiency. Without a redistribution mechanism to fuel consumption, the market collapses entirely as wealth is further concentrated. Further reading: 1. http://www.naturalfinance.net/2013/02/nearly-all-of-us-support-slavery.html 2. http://amzn.com/B005WTR4ZI 3. http://amzn.com/B002S0NITU
残障人数增长很大程度是老龄化劳动力加体力劳动伤病积累的自然结果
残障人数上升的部分原因很简单：劳动力在老龄化，年纪越大健康问题越多。婴儿潮一代做了大量建设实体基础设施的体力工作——建筑、道路、电力、采矿、机械——这类工作造成的伤病远多于坐办公室的工作，而且干不了那么久。我父亲靠挂石膏板为生，六年级辍学，根本不可能撑到 64 岁，他 53 岁就因工作对身体造成的损伤去世了。而这套制度却一直在奖励那些坐办公室的西装革履的房产经纪和销售。
shawnee_查看英文原文
Part of the rise in the number of people on disability is simply driven by the fact that the workforce is getting older, and older people tend to have more health problems. This is probably one of the key points the article could be making, but it's kinda glossed over. As the baby boom generation (the one born ~1946 –> ~1959) nears retirement, it makes a lot of sense. That generation - my parents' generation - really did a large portion of the work involved with building out the physical infrastructure that allows our economy to operate as it does today: buildings, roads, power lines, mining, machinery, warehouses, etc. Physical work tends to create more injuries and disabilities than sedentary work, and people who do that kind of work simply cannot do it for as long as people who do sedentary work. How can we forget there was an entire generation of people who turned the 1940's USA into the one of the 1970s? I know I've mentioned this on here before but it's relevant: my dad hung sheetrock for living. He stopped going to school after 6th grade. There was no way he could have made to age 64 -- people thought he was crazy to be doing it until age 53 -- which is when he died, almost 10 years ago. From a combination of issues related to what his work did to his body. But the sheer idiocy of the system which has rewarded and continues to reward neat-suit Realtors and loan officers and salesmen (those "educated" ones who tend to work the sedentary jobs) -- instead of the workers meant that he was left with no options for healthcare, retirement, or even being able to leave his children a dime. It's not like none of them have a work ethic. . . many of them have worked long and hard already; they're just "prematurely" tired and worn out. Not to mention the system keeps trying to move the dangling carrot of retirement further and further away from their grasp by attempting to increase retirement age. [edit -- apologies for the awry double pasted text in the original post]
教育与培训机会能让人摆脱对残障福利的依赖，但并非人人可得
作为美国的盲人，我曾是残障边缘的一员。让我没走上残障之路的是大学：因失明我获得了额外的经济资助读完学位，然后做了程序员，收入是残障补助的三倍以上。如果没有上大学的机会，我很可能也会申请残障——因为对盲人来说，不需要学位的工作几乎没有。读完这篇报道，大多数人都没我这样的机会，即使有，有些人也不愿利用。我们应该扩大教育和职业培训的机会，但没法强迫人们去抓住它们。
jareds查看英文原文
As a blind individual in America I’m an example of someone on the disability bubble. What allowed me to avoid going on disability was college. By being blind I got some additional financial help to get through college. Even though I could have probably gotten full disability it made a lot more sense for me to get a degree and a programming job. I never considered going the disability rout since I easily make three times what I would have on disability and expect that gap to grow wider as I become more experience. If college hadn’t been an option for me I could easily see myself going on disability. I can’t think of a lot of jobs I could do that wouldn’t have required a college degree since most physical labor is not an option for me. Even with the help I got from the government with college I’ll still wind up being a plus on the governments balance sheet since I don’t receive any disability payments now that I work full time and pay taxes. Unfortunately from reading the story most people don’t have the opportunities I did, and even if they do some refuse to take advantage of them. While I think we should expand opportunities for education and job training there’s no way to force people to take advantage of them.
UBI 能避免'残障'标签的心理伤害，且在 AI 时代愈发必要
遗憾的是美国无法认真考虑全民基本收入。如果给每个成年公民每年 1.3 万美元，就能帮助那些找不到有意义工作的人，而不必让他们为了生存宣布自己'残障'——这个标签对人的心理伤害很大，会限制他们相信自己还能成长或找到更好的机会。也要现实一点：AI 将在未来十年取代大量工作，UBI 这样的安全网只会越来越必要。
cebert查看英文原文
It’s unfortunate that we can’t seriously consider universal basic income in the United States. If we provided every adult citizen with $13K annually during their working years, it could offer support to those unable to find meaningful employment without forcing them to declare themselves disabled just to survive. That label can take a real toll on a person’s psyche and limit their belief in their ability to grow or find better opportunities. We also have to be realistic and realize AI is positioned to replace a significant number of jobs in the next decade. A safety net like UBI will only become more essential moving forward.
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