Too-sick-to-work Americans reduce labor force

Michael White says he wishes he still could pluck the bass line to Hank Williams Jr.’s “Born to Boogie” and pay bills with money he earns himself. High unemployment — along with ailments he says render his fingers inoperative and make him cough up blood — have dashed his hopes.

White is among the 1.6 million Americans who have claimed Social Security Disability Insurance, or SSDI, since the 18-month recession began in 2007. When the slump reduced demand for tow-truck drivers, White, 60, who has also worked as a musician, lost the job he’d held for five years and started collecting unemployment benefits.

Complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, diabetes and other medical problems then made it impossible for him to return to a labor market that lacks opportunities for people with health problems and those in better shape.

“I can’t stress enough that I’d rather be working, but my health has gotten the worst of me, and any place I would have applied wouldn’t have hired me,” said White, of Fort Myers, Fla.

The number of workers receiving SSDI jumped 22 percent to 8.7 million in April from 7.1 million in December 2007, Social Security data show. That helps explain as much as one quarter of the decline in the U.S. labor-force participation rate during the period, according to economists at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley.

The participation rate — the share of working-age people holding a job or seeking one — was 63.8 percent in March after falling to a three-decade low of 63.7 percent in January. Disability recipients may account for as much as 0.5 percentage point of the more than 2 point drop since the end of 2007, the economists calculate, and that contribution could grow when some extended unemployment benefits expire at the end of this year.