In our last readings of Murray, he discusses the apparent decline in industriousness among white, working class families in the fictionalized town of Fishtown. Made to represent the communities of rural America, comprised predominantly of blue-collar, lower income workers, Murray correlates the decrease in working men with an increasing reliance on disability checks and leisure. I would like to offer a different perspective on the realities of these Americans through the Washington Post's series on "Disabled America."
While undeniably some Americans have become disillusioned with the disappearing availability of manual labor jobs due to automatization and the shrinking of the coal industry, to state that a sheer lack of industriousness drives this sentiment disregards a more complex reality. Instead, many once hard-working Americans are finding themselves unable to work due to surmounting physical and mental illnesses that result from years of intense manual labor.
As applications for disability benefits have increased substantially the last few decades, "in the past two years, 18,701 people have died while waiting for a judge’s decision, increasing 15 percent from 8,699 deaths in fiscal 2016 to 10,002 deaths in fiscal 2017." The national disability approval rate by judges decreased from 73 percent in 2008 to a mere 55 percent last year; is it really as easy for lower class Americans to attain disability benefits- due to a lack of industriousness- as Murray suggests?
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