The "disabled" metric is a joke. A lot of NEETs aren't really disabled and are gaming the system with fake diagnoses and are outright lying.

There's a whole class of these guys who have basically retired on the state dime and use MGTOW tropes like blaming women, the work force, home ownership, etc to justify their laziness.

I used to be sympathetic but when you meet these guys, they're basically a "big rock candy mountain" hobos and have a myriad of personal problems they refuse to fix since the state freebies make it possible to live this way.

Also 1.3 million men are incarcerated, most of which fall into that age range.

He also doesn't really go into the realities of disability benefits, but I think it's worth pointing out that the criteria of a disability preventing you from working can be dependent both on the kinds of work available to you in your community, and the judgement of medical professionals.

My understanding is that many people on disability could plausibly do _some_ work, but if a past injury or illness makes it difficult to be on their feet throughout the day, and the jobs available to them in their communities are in some way physical (even just standing at a register), they end up out of the workforce.

I wonder if it would be better for everyone if there was a middle tier for people whose disability makes them unable to get a job in the market with their current abilities, but doesn't preclude them from doing something useful (e.g. volunteering in their community) or from studying to be able to do other work, and require them to do one or the other to continue receiving benefits. Perhaps this, coupled with greater support for employers making accessibility affordances for workers could get more of these people reengaged with society.