The rising cost of disability benefits
Social Security disability benefits—paid to people who can no longer work—more than doubled between 2001 and last year, when they totaled $124 billion. The program may run out of reserves in seven years.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Following in dad's footsteps
Forty percent of Americans at some point work for the same firm that employed their fathers, according to a study in the Journal of Labor Economics. But as a father’s income increases, so does the chance that his child will work for the same company. In the top 1 percent of highest-earning Americans, seven out of 10 sons take a job with their dads’ employers.
AndrewSullivan.TheDailyBeast.com
Black bear population surges
As a result of 1970s-era hunting bans, the U.S. black bear population is surging, causing growing numbers of confrontations between food-seeking bears and humans in Florida, Nevada, New Jersey, and other states. “There are now bears in areas of the country where there haven’t been bears since colonial days,” says wildlife biologist Rick Winslow.
The Wall Street Journal
The EPA's track record against chemicals
The Environmental Protection Agency has tested just 200 of the 80,000 chemicals registered in the United States. The total number banned: five.
The Washington Post
The worst passwords
A software security firm has isolated the 25 worst passwords to use online. These included “123456,” “qwerty,” “letmein,” and the worst, “password.”
ABCNews.com
-
What will security guarantees for Ukraine look like?Today's Big Question From boots on the ground to economic sanctions, here are the measures that might stop Russia taking another bite out of Ukraine
-
The US Open's controversial 'superstars' doubles formatTalking Point New shortened competition attracts star pairings and bigger audiences to grand slam tennis event
-
Crossword: August 21, 2025The Week's daily crossword
-
Very rich and very poor in California, and morefeature California is home to 111 billionaires, yet it also suffers the highest poverty rate in the country.
-
Arctic cold kills tree insects, and more
feature This winter’s arctic temperatures have had at least one beneficial impact: They’ve killed ash borers, gypsy moths, and other tree-eating insects.
-
Congress's poor record, and more
feature The 113th Congress is on course to pass less legislation than any Congress in history.
-
Gender differences in employment, and more
feature
-
A first for West Point, and more
feature For the first time, two male graduates of West Point were married at the military academy’s chapel.
-
A God given land?, and more
feature More white evangelical Protestants than U.S Jews believe that Israel was “given to the Jewish people by God.”
-
Jailing the mentally ill, and more
feature American prisons have replaced state mental hospitals as a place to warehouse the mentally ill.
-
Treating Internet addiction, and more
feature Treating Internet addiction; Freshman virgins at Harvard; A salary handicap for lefties; Prices for vintage automobiles soar; Gun permits for blind people