I'm glad you started this thread DBF. Yes, it has become the "white man's welfare" and it is just as inexcusable as people abusing welfare.
*My dad's brother (my uncle) got wind that his job POSSIBLY could be phased out within the next year. Possibly leaving him unemployed at 60 years old and still needing to work. One day at work he "hurt his back" while making a delivery and filed for disability. He went through all the processes needed to get disability. He called my dad after several months of getting checks bragging how nice it was to get that "mailbox money" while he hunted and fished all day. Daddy told him they weren't raised that way and he shouldn't have done that. His excuse was "I've been paying for all these other folks to sit on their...for all these years while I worked my fingers to the bone. It's time to get some of my money back. I don't feel one bit bad about it." So, for several years he did that until he was notified one day that his disability payments would be discontinued because they had pictures of him doing manual labor things that supposedly his doctor said he couldn't do. In other words he got caught. I also think he was required to pay back a % of the benefits he had received. He got several nasty letters in the mail from the insurance company.
*At the office last week a lady's husband come to take her to lunch. I know the guy and he dropped by my office to say "hey". He looked like his same old self. Nothing appeared to be wrong with the guy. He was walking fine, happy, energetic etc. After he brought his wife back from lunch she dropped by my office and ask if "Dan" had told me he was on disability and couldn't work anymore? I said "No, he never mentioned a thing. What happened to him?" She said he had an "accident" at work and "hurt his back" and wouldn't be able to go back to work. This guy's job, though in a warehouse, isn't considered heavy manual labor. He isn't required to lift or move heavy weighted items. I maybe completely wrong, but my guess is he's trying to get on the "white man's welfare" program as well.