Rising Disability Claims and Higher Productivity Growth

Robert Samuelson is unhappy that so many people without jobs are getting Social Security disability benefits. He notes the sharp rise in the number of beneficiaries over the last two decades. 

He misses one reason that the number of beneficiaries could be rising. Many companies have striven to downsize to save money and increase their productivity. This downsizing effort is often touted as one of the factors behind the uptick in productivity growth in 1995.

However an implication of this...