That might have been a better headline for a NYT piece on the Trans-Pacific Partnership. As the piece points out, the provisions on labor rights in Vietnam and currency interventions by governments, which have been widely touted by the Obama administration, are not actually enforceable under the terms of the TPP. There are other much less well-defined mechanisms. On the other hand, if Pfizer wants to argue that Australia is not respecting its patent rights or George Lucas wants to complain that Malaysia is not honoring his copyrights on Star Wars, there is recourse through the Investor-State Dispute Settlement mechanism.
That might have been a better headline for a NYT piece on the Trans-Pacific Partnership. As the piece points out, the provisions on labor rights in Vietnam and currency interventions by governments, which have been widely touted by the Obama administration, are not actually enforceable under the terms of the TPP. There are other much less well-defined mechanisms. On the other hand, if Pfizer wants to argue that Australia is not respecting its patent rights or George Lucas wants to complain that Malaysia is not honoring his copyrights on Star Wars, there is recourse through the Investor-State Dispute Settlement mechanism.
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The Washington Post got recent history badly wrong in the third paragraph of its lead front page article when it told readers:
“Three years ago, GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and Ryan, his running mate, faced withering Democratic attacks after endorsing dramatic overhauls of Medicare and Social Security that proved unpopular.”
Actually, Romney did not endorse an overhaul of Social Security in his 2012 campaign, although Ryan has long been on record as favoring privatization. Presumably, they chose not to raise the issue in the campaign since they knew it would be highly unpopular.
The piece also notes Governor Chris Christie’s characterization of himself as a “truth-teller” on Social Security and then reports on his plan to save the system money by means-testing benefits starting at $80,000 and eliminating them entirely for people with incomes over $200,000. The truth is that this cut would only reduce spending by 1.0-1.5 percent. Furthermore, it would effectively increase the marginal tax rate for people in this $80,000-$200,000 range by more than 20 percentage points.
Correction:
While Romney did not call for privatizing Social Security, he did propose raising the normal retirement age by two years to 69. He also proposed reducing benefits for middle and upper income workers from their currently scheduled levels.
The Washington Post got recent history badly wrong in the third paragraph of its lead front page article when it told readers:
“Three years ago, GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and Ryan, his running mate, faced withering Democratic attacks after endorsing dramatic overhauls of Medicare and Social Security that proved unpopular.”
Actually, Romney did not endorse an overhaul of Social Security in his 2012 campaign, although Ryan has long been on record as favoring privatization. Presumably, they chose not to raise the issue in the campaign since they knew it would be highly unpopular.
The piece also notes Governor Chris Christie’s characterization of himself as a “truth-teller” on Social Security and then reports on his plan to save the system money by means-testing benefits starting at $80,000 and eliminating them entirely for people with incomes over $200,000. The truth is that this cut would only reduce spending by 1.0-1.5 percent. Furthermore, it would effectively increase the marginal tax rate for people in this $80,000-$200,000 range by more than 20 percentage points.
Correction:
While Romney did not call for privatizing Social Security, he did propose raising the normal retirement age by two years to 69. He also proposed reducing benefits for middle and upper income workers from their currently scheduled levels.
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The Washington Post decided to correct the positive image of Denmark that Senator Bernie Sanders and others have been giving it in recent months. It ran a piece telling readers:
“Why Denmark isn’t the Utopian fantasy Bernie Sanders describes.”
The piece is centered on an interview with Michael Booth, a food and travel writer who has spent a considerable period of time in the Scandinavian countries.
Much of the piece is focuses on the alleged economic problems of Denmark and the other Scandinavian countries. At one point the interviewer (Ana Swanson) asks:
“Danes are experiencing a rising debt level, and a lower proportion of people working. Are these worrying signs for its economy or the country’s model?”
While Denmark’s employment rate has been declining, it is still far higher than the employment rate in the United States. The employment rate for prime age workers (ages 25–54) is still more than 5 full percentage points higher than in the United States. If the rate of decline since the 2001 peak continues, it will fall below the current U.S. level in roughly 24 years. (The U.S. rate also fell over this period.) If we take the broader 16–64 age group then the gap falls slightly to 4.7 percentage points.
As far as having an unsustainable debt level, Swanson seems somewhat confused. According to the I.M.F., Denmark’s net debt as a percent of its GDP will be 6.3 percent at the end of this year. Sweden has a negative net debt, meaning the government owns more financial assets than the amount of debt it has outstanding. In Norway’s case, because of its huge oil assets, the proceeds of which it has largely saved, the government wealth to GDP ratio is almost 270 percent. This would be equivalent to having a public investment fund of more than $40 trillion in the United States.
Some of the other assertions in the piece are either misleading or inaccurate. For example, Booth is quoted as saying:
“Meanwhile, though it is true that these are the most gender-equal societies in the world, they also record the highest rates of violence towards women — only part of which can be explained by high levels of reporting of crime.”
Actually, Danish women are far less likely to be murdered by their husbands or boyfriends than women in the United States. Its murder rate is 1.1 per 100,000, compared to 5.5 per 100,000 in the United States.
Later Booth is quoted as saying:
“In Denmark, the quality of the free education and health care is substandard: They are way down on the PISA [Programme for International Student Assessment] educational rankings, have the lowest life expectancy in the region, and the highest rates of death from cancer. And there is broad consensus that the economic model of a public sector and welfare state on this scale is unsustainable.”
While Denmark is not among the leaders on either PISA scores or life expectancy, on both measures it is well ahead of the United States. And the “broad consensus that the economic model…is unsustainable” exists only in Booth’s head.
Booth is also apparently confused about tax rates around the world. He tells readers:
“Denmark has the highest direct and indirect taxes in the world, and you don’t need to be a high earner to make it into the top tax bracket of 56% (to which you must add 25% value-added tax, the highest energy taxes in the world, car import duty of 180%, and so on).”
Actually France has a top marginal tax rate of 75 percent. The U.S. rate was 90 percent during the Eisenhower administration.
Booth apparently is confused about Denmark’s public spending. He tells readers:
“How the money is spent is kept deliberately opaque by the authorities.”
Actually, it is not difficult to find a great deal of information about Denmark’s money is spent. Much of it can be gotten from the OECD’s website.
So we get that Mr. Booth doesn’t like Denmark. He tells readers that the food and weather are awful. That may be true, but his analysis of other aspects of Danish society doesn’t fit with the data.
The Washington Post decided to correct the positive image of Denmark that Senator Bernie Sanders and others have been giving it in recent months. It ran a piece telling readers:
“Why Denmark isn’t the Utopian fantasy Bernie Sanders describes.”
The piece is centered on an interview with Michael Booth, a food and travel writer who has spent a considerable period of time in the Scandinavian countries.
Much of the piece is focuses on the alleged economic problems of Denmark and the other Scandinavian countries. At one point the interviewer (Ana Swanson) asks:
“Danes are experiencing a rising debt level, and a lower proportion of people working. Are these worrying signs for its economy or the country’s model?”
While Denmark’s employment rate has been declining, it is still far higher than the employment rate in the United States. The employment rate for prime age workers (ages 25–54) is still more than 5 full percentage points higher than in the United States. If the rate of decline since the 2001 peak continues, it will fall below the current U.S. level in roughly 24 years. (The U.S. rate also fell over this period.) If we take the broader 16–64 age group then the gap falls slightly to 4.7 percentage points.
As far as having an unsustainable debt level, Swanson seems somewhat confused. According to the I.M.F., Denmark’s net debt as a percent of its GDP will be 6.3 percent at the end of this year. Sweden has a negative net debt, meaning the government owns more financial assets than the amount of debt it has outstanding. In Norway’s case, because of its huge oil assets, the proceeds of which it has largely saved, the government wealth to GDP ratio is almost 270 percent. This would be equivalent to having a public investment fund of more than $40 trillion in the United States.
Some of the other assertions in the piece are either misleading or inaccurate. For example, Booth is quoted as saying:
“Meanwhile, though it is true that these are the most gender-equal societies in the world, they also record the highest rates of violence towards women — only part of which can be explained by high levels of reporting of crime.”
Actually, Danish women are far less likely to be murdered by their husbands or boyfriends than women in the United States. Its murder rate is 1.1 per 100,000, compared to 5.5 per 100,000 in the United States.
Later Booth is quoted as saying:
“In Denmark, the quality of the free education and health care is substandard: They are way down on the PISA [Programme for International Student Assessment] educational rankings, have the lowest life expectancy in the region, and the highest rates of death from cancer. And there is broad consensus that the economic model of a public sector and welfare state on this scale is unsustainable.”
While Denmark is not among the leaders on either PISA scores or life expectancy, on both measures it is well ahead of the United States. And the “broad consensus that the economic model…is unsustainable” exists only in Booth’s head.
Booth is also apparently confused about tax rates around the world. He tells readers:
“Denmark has the highest direct and indirect taxes in the world, and you don’t need to be a high earner to make it into the top tax bracket of 56% (to which you must add 25% value-added tax, the highest energy taxes in the world, car import duty of 180%, and so on).”
Actually France has a top marginal tax rate of 75 percent. The U.S. rate was 90 percent during the Eisenhower administration.
Booth apparently is confused about Denmark’s public spending. He tells readers:
“How the money is spent is kept deliberately opaque by the authorities.”
Actually, it is not difficult to find a great deal of information about Denmark’s money is spent. Much of it can be gotten from the OECD’s website.
So we get that Mr. Booth doesn’t like Denmark. He tells readers that the food and weather are awful. That may be true, but his analysis of other aspects of Danish society doesn’t fit with the data.
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Austin Frakt had an interesting piece discussing people’s abilities to select the lowest cost health care plan to meet their needs. He cites a number of studies that indicate people often make mistakes. For example, they frequently will pay way too much for plans with low deductibles and they fail to switch drug plans, even when they would have clear savings. (These behaviors are not necessarily irrational. If people know that a high deductible will discourage them from getting necessary care, they may opt for a plan that removes this obstacle. Also, filling out forms can be an ordeal for many people. If a person has familiarized themselves with one company’s forms, they may not want to switch companies and have to deal with a new set of forms, even if it could save them money.)
Anyhow, there is an interesting implication of this discussion that is not explored in the piece. If we assume that insurers have some target profit rate, then they obtain this rate from the average profit they earn from their customers. If insurers can make a larger than average profit from people who make bad choices, for example by paying too much to reduce their deductible, then they can make a lower than average profit from people who can effectively navigate through the choices offered.
This means that presenting a range of choices is a good way to redistribute from the people who are not very good at analyzing choices to those who are. The latter group tends to do things like write about insurance systems and advise politicians on these issues. This could help explain the preference by our politicians for systems involving choice over more simple options, like universal Medicare.
Austin Frakt had an interesting piece discussing people’s abilities to select the lowest cost health care plan to meet their needs. He cites a number of studies that indicate people often make mistakes. For example, they frequently will pay way too much for plans with low deductibles and they fail to switch drug plans, even when they would have clear savings. (These behaviors are not necessarily irrational. If people know that a high deductible will discourage them from getting necessary care, they may opt for a plan that removes this obstacle. Also, filling out forms can be an ordeal for many people. If a person has familiarized themselves with one company’s forms, they may not want to switch companies and have to deal with a new set of forms, even if it could save them money.)
Anyhow, there is an interesting implication of this discussion that is not explored in the piece. If we assume that insurers have some target profit rate, then they obtain this rate from the average profit they earn from their customers. If insurers can make a larger than average profit from people who make bad choices, for example by paying too much to reduce their deductible, then they can make a lower than average profit from people who can effectively navigate through the choices offered.
This means that presenting a range of choices is a good way to redistribute from the people who are not very good at analyzing choices to those who are. The latter group tends to do things like write about insurance systems and advise politicians on these issues. This could help explain the preference by our politicians for systems involving choice over more simple options, like universal Medicare.
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Hey, better late than never. It was good to see two columns reporting on new data indicating that the Current Population Survey (CPS), the main survey used to measure poverty rates, as well as employment and unemployment, seriously undercounts the number of poor people due to undercoverage in its sample. It’s an important point and deserves attention.
We thought so too, which is why John Schmitt was writing about the issue almost a decade ago for CEPR. Schmitt noticed a large gap between employment rates as shown in the CPS and the 2000 Census long-form. The latter was lower with the largest gap for the groups with the lowest coverage rate in the CPS. (Coverage rates in the Census are close to 99 percent due to extensive outreach efforts.) In the case of young African American men the gap was close to 8.0 percentage points.
Anyhow, this is an important issue and it is good to see it get some attention. Of course it would have been better if it got some attention a decade ago.
Hey, better late than never. It was good to see two columns reporting on new data indicating that the Current Population Survey (CPS), the main survey used to measure poverty rates, as well as employment and unemployment, seriously undercounts the number of poor people due to undercoverage in its sample. It’s an important point and deserves attention.
We thought so too, which is why John Schmitt was writing about the issue almost a decade ago for CEPR. Schmitt noticed a large gap between employment rates as shown in the CPS and the 2000 Census long-form. The latter was lower with the largest gap for the groups with the lowest coverage rate in the CPS. (Coverage rates in the Census are close to 99 percent due to extensive outreach efforts.) In the case of young African American men the gap was close to 8.0 percentage points.
Anyhow, this is an important issue and it is good to see it get some attention. Of course it would have been better if it got some attention a decade ago.
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That is sort of what the Post reported. It told readers that:
“One of the largest federal programs that provides cash benefits to disabled workers overpaid $11 billion during the past nine years to people who returned to work and made too much money, a new study says.”
The Post article never bothered to tell readers that the program paid out roughly $1.1 trillion in benefits over this period, making the overpayment equal to 1.0 percent of benefits. It also would have been worth noting that the study by the Government Accountability Office found that most of this money is repaid, so that the government ends up losing substantially less than 0.5 percent of its spending on the disability program due to overpayments.
That is sort of what the Post reported. It told readers that:
“One of the largest federal programs that provides cash benefits to disabled workers overpaid $11 billion during the past nine years to people who returned to work and made too much money, a new study says.”
The Post article never bothered to tell readers that the program paid out roughly $1.1 trillion in benefits over this period, making the overpayment equal to 1.0 percent of benefits. It also would have been worth noting that the study by the Government Accountability Office found that most of this money is repaid, so that the government ends up losing substantially less than 0.5 percent of its spending on the disability program due to overpayments.
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The Wall Street Journal had an article on slow pay growth in recent years that was headlined, “shift to benefits from pay helps explain sluggish wage growth.” The article goes on to explain that one of the reasons that wages are not growing is that an increasing share of compensation is going to benefits like health insurance.
The problem with this explanation is that it is clearly not true. According to data from Bureau of Economic Analysis, wages accounted for 83.2 percent of labor compensation in the corporate sector in 2007 (Table 1.14, Line 5 divided by Line 4). In the most recent quarter they accounted for 83.8 percent of labor compensation. This means that the wage share of compensation has increased by 0.6 percentage points over the last eight years. That goes the wrong way for the WSJ’s story.
Note: Typo and link corrected, thanks Robert Salzberg and ltr.
The Wall Street Journal had an article on slow pay growth in recent years that was headlined, “shift to benefits from pay helps explain sluggish wage growth.” The article goes on to explain that one of the reasons that wages are not growing is that an increasing share of compensation is going to benefits like health insurance.
The problem with this explanation is that it is clearly not true. According to data from Bureau of Economic Analysis, wages accounted for 83.2 percent of labor compensation in the corporate sector in 2007 (Table 1.14, Line 5 divided by Line 4). In the most recent quarter they accounted for 83.8 percent of labor compensation. This means that the wage share of compensation has increased by 0.6 percentage points over the last eight years. That goes the wrong way for the WSJ’s story.
Note: Typo and link corrected, thanks Robert Salzberg and ltr.
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Neil Irwin, a writer for the NYT Upshot section, had an interesting debate with himself about the likely future course of the economy. He got the picture mostly right in my view, with a few important qualifications.
First, his negative scenario is another recession and possibly a financial crisis. I know a lot of folks are saying this stuff, but it’s frankly a little silly. The basis of the last financial crisis was a massive amount of debt issued against a hugely over-valued asset (housing). A financial crisis that actually rocks the economy needs this sort of basis.
If a lot of people are speculating in the stock of Uber or other wonder companies, and reality wipes them out, this is just a story of some speculators being wiped out. It is not going to shake the economy as a whole. (San Francisco’s economy could take a serious hit.)
Anyhow, financial crises don’t just happen, there has to be a real basis for them. To me, the housing bubble was pretty obvious given the unprecedented and unexplained run-up in prices in the largest market in the world. Perhaps there is another bubble out there like this, but neither Irwin nor anyone else has even identified a serious candidate. Until someone can at least give us their candidate bubble, we need not take the financial crisis story seriously.
If we take this collapse story off the table, then we need to reframe the negative scenario. It is not a sudden plunge in output, but rather a period of slow growth and weak job creation. This seems like a much more plausible story.
As Irwin notes, the rising dollar and weak economies of U.S. trading partners are reducing net exports for the country. This is likely to be a drag on growth through the rest of this year and well into 2016. Non-residential investment growth has slowed to a crawl, and with a lot of vacant office space in many markets (look around downtown D.C.), it may slow further. In spite of all the whining about people being unwilling to spend, consumption is actually quite high relative to disposable income.
This doesn’t leave much to drive growth. We have been stuck at a weak pace of just over 2.0 percent for the last five years. This has been associated with decent job creation only because of the collapse of productivity growth over this period. It is reasonable to think that growth may slow further. If slower growth were coupled with even a modest uptick in productivity growth (e.g. to 1.5 percent), it could bring job growth to a halt.
This would leave us with an indefinite period of labor market weakness. The unemployment rate may not go up much, but we will make no headway towards bringing the employment to population ratio back to a more normal level. And most workers would continue to see their pay stagnate.
We got a piece of evidence supporting this bad story yesterday when the Labor Department released the Employment Cost Index (ECI) for the third quarter. Instead of the prospect of rising wages, that has folks at the Fed worried, the ECI showed wage and compensation rates slowing from earlier in the year. Over the last year, total hourly compensation has risen 2.0 percent, with wages rising 2.1 percent. There is zero evidence here of any acceleration.
Anyhow, a story of slow job growth and ongoing wage stagnation would look like a pretty bad story to most of the country. It may not be as dramatic as a financial crisis that brings the world banking system to its knees, but it is far more likely and therefore something that we should be very worried about.
Neil Irwin, a writer for the NYT Upshot section, had an interesting debate with himself about the likely future course of the economy. He got the picture mostly right in my view, with a few important qualifications.
First, his negative scenario is another recession and possibly a financial crisis. I know a lot of folks are saying this stuff, but it’s frankly a little silly. The basis of the last financial crisis was a massive amount of debt issued against a hugely over-valued asset (housing). A financial crisis that actually rocks the economy needs this sort of basis.
If a lot of people are speculating in the stock of Uber or other wonder companies, and reality wipes them out, this is just a story of some speculators being wiped out. It is not going to shake the economy as a whole. (San Francisco’s economy could take a serious hit.)
Anyhow, financial crises don’t just happen, there has to be a real basis for them. To me, the housing bubble was pretty obvious given the unprecedented and unexplained run-up in prices in the largest market in the world. Perhaps there is another bubble out there like this, but neither Irwin nor anyone else has even identified a serious candidate. Until someone can at least give us their candidate bubble, we need not take the financial crisis story seriously.
If we take this collapse story off the table, then we need to reframe the negative scenario. It is not a sudden plunge in output, but rather a period of slow growth and weak job creation. This seems like a much more plausible story.
As Irwin notes, the rising dollar and weak economies of U.S. trading partners are reducing net exports for the country. This is likely to be a drag on growth through the rest of this year and well into 2016. Non-residential investment growth has slowed to a crawl, and with a lot of vacant office space in many markets (look around downtown D.C.), it may slow further. In spite of all the whining about people being unwilling to spend, consumption is actually quite high relative to disposable income.
This doesn’t leave much to drive growth. We have been stuck at a weak pace of just over 2.0 percent for the last five years. This has been associated with decent job creation only because of the collapse of productivity growth over this period. It is reasonable to think that growth may slow further. If slower growth were coupled with even a modest uptick in productivity growth (e.g. to 1.5 percent), it could bring job growth to a halt.
This would leave us with an indefinite period of labor market weakness. The unemployment rate may not go up much, but we will make no headway towards bringing the employment to population ratio back to a more normal level. And most workers would continue to see their pay stagnate.
We got a piece of evidence supporting this bad story yesterday when the Labor Department released the Employment Cost Index (ECI) for the third quarter. Instead of the prospect of rising wages, that has folks at the Fed worried, the ECI showed wage and compensation rates slowing from earlier in the year. Over the last year, total hourly compensation has risen 2.0 percent, with wages rising 2.1 percent. There is zero evidence here of any acceleration.
Anyhow, a story of slow job growth and ongoing wage stagnation would look like a pretty bad story to most of the country. It may not be as dramatic as a financial crisis that brings the world banking system to its knees, but it is far more likely and therefore something that we should be very worried about.
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We all know how hard it is for folks like David Brooks, living in remote corners of Washington, to find out about changes in public policy. Therefore, it wasn’t surprising to see him praise Marco Rubio, Brooks’ favored candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, for a welfare reform proposal that was put in place almost 20 years ago.
The context was the installation of Paul Ryan as speaker and Brooks’ perception that Rubio has emerged as the likely Republican presidential nominee. Brooks see both as promising conservative leaders.
The 20-year-old proposal that Brooks sees as a new idea is the plan to:
“…convert most federal welfare spending into a ‘flex fund’ that would go straight to the states.”
Brooks may be too young to remember, but this proposal was at the center of the 1996 welfare reform in which TANF, the main government welfare program, was transformed into a block grant. It turned out that block granting did not work very well. While some states did respond to the increased need for TANF in the last recession by increasing funding, many did not. This is the reason why programs are run by the federal government or with rules set by the federal government.
This is not the only item on which Brooks is apparently unfamiliar with the evidence. He also tells readers:
“As Oren Cass of the Manhattan Institute has pointed out, there are two million fewer Americans working today than before the recession and two million more receiving disabilities benefits.”
Accordiing to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we actually have 4 million more people working today than before the recession, but the 2 million increase in disability beneficiaries is approximately correct, although the implication that it is due to more people opting not to work is completely wrong. The vast majority of this increase was due to the aging of the baby boomers into the peak disability years and the increase in the normal retirement age to 66. (Disability beneficiaries stay on disability insurance until they reach the normal retirement age.)
Since these factors were known before the recession, the Social Security Trustees were able to predict in their 2007 report that the number of disability beneficiaries would be 1.8 million higher in 2015 than in 2006. One item that the Trustees may not have incorporated into their projections was the tightening of state worker compensation program eligibility requirements. As a result, many people who might have otherwise been getting worker compensation benefits are instead collecting disability benefits.
The characterization of Speaker Ryan as a forward looking moderate is also questionable. He has repeatedly advocated extreme positions that are far outside of the mainstream of both parties. He has called for privatizing Social Security and Medicare and shutting down the non-military portion of the government by the middle of the century.
We all know how hard it is for folks like David Brooks, living in remote corners of Washington, to find out about changes in public policy. Therefore, it wasn’t surprising to see him praise Marco Rubio, Brooks’ favored candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, for a welfare reform proposal that was put in place almost 20 years ago.
The context was the installation of Paul Ryan as speaker and Brooks’ perception that Rubio has emerged as the likely Republican presidential nominee. Brooks see both as promising conservative leaders.
The 20-year-old proposal that Brooks sees as a new idea is the plan to:
“…convert most federal welfare spending into a ‘flex fund’ that would go straight to the states.”
Brooks may be too young to remember, but this proposal was at the center of the 1996 welfare reform in which TANF, the main government welfare program, was transformed into a block grant. It turned out that block granting did not work very well. While some states did respond to the increased need for TANF in the last recession by increasing funding, many did not. This is the reason why programs are run by the federal government or with rules set by the federal government.
This is not the only item on which Brooks is apparently unfamiliar with the evidence. He also tells readers:
“As Oren Cass of the Manhattan Institute has pointed out, there are two million fewer Americans working today than before the recession and two million more receiving disabilities benefits.”
Accordiing to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we actually have 4 million more people working today than before the recession, but the 2 million increase in disability beneficiaries is approximately correct, although the implication that it is due to more people opting not to work is completely wrong. The vast majority of this increase was due to the aging of the baby boomers into the peak disability years and the increase in the normal retirement age to 66. (Disability beneficiaries stay on disability insurance until they reach the normal retirement age.)
Since these factors were known before the recession, the Social Security Trustees were able to predict in their 2007 report that the number of disability beneficiaries would be 1.8 million higher in 2015 than in 2006. One item that the Trustees may not have incorporated into their projections was the tightening of state worker compensation program eligibility requirements. As a result, many people who might have otherwise been getting worker compensation benefits are instead collecting disability benefits.
The characterization of Speaker Ryan as a forward looking moderate is also questionable. He has repeatedly advocated extreme positions that are far outside of the mainstream of both parties. He has called for privatizing Social Security and Medicare and shutting down the non-military portion of the government by the middle of the century.
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