I would like to think that the government would have doctors (through examinations, etc.) make sure that a person cannot work physically or mentally prior to putting them on the government disability payroll. With that being said..... if a person is in fact on disability..... it must be necessary. I would like to think.......
there's a whole bucket o' worms there, momma!
ever heard of 'special sleaze initiative' ? (SSI) there are a whole lot of people sucking off the dole that are not mentally or physically impaired enough to justify full disability.
i'm a dissident activist of the peace and freedom wingnut independant constitutionalist type profiled as an 'unstable malcontent'. when i was shot but not killed as a consequence of sticking my nose too close to the contragate cocaine outlet stores in los angeles in 1987, i was refused any kind of disability benefits based on the physical injuries but was forced to accept a psychiatric disability to have any income at all for the many months it took to recover from my wound.
that put the last nails in an already nearly shut coffin on my career as a biochemist/zoologist. now i was unemployable with a potentially homicidal flag in my jacket (propaganda to discredit my credibility. they're just pissed because i'm real handy with firearms and explosives and refuse to kill anything with them for anybody

).
the monthly benefit has never been enough to cover normal living expenses and i have always done something to earn extra income. in the 90's, i used the check to finance a mobile hippie medicine show and did real well until they ramped up the war on terrorism and blended it in with the war on drugs toward the end of the century and the first few years of the new. as long as i don't declare more than about $650/mo in earned income it won't effect my benefits.
i lost most of the property i had built up to dope fiends and the police who aid and abet them, so i'm not doing big shows right now -- just working the streets with my music and jewelry.
just because someone is disabled doesn't mean they can't work. as is always pointed out, there are people with very serious impairments that work full time.