In rural Hale County, Alabama, 25 percent of working-age adults are on disability, and as a result, they get a check from the government averaging about $1,000 a month. Hale is part of a massive rise in the number of Americans on disability in the past 20 years, according to a report this weekend on the National Public Radio show "This American Life.

The episode,

prominently features Hale County and its county seat, Greensboro, due to the abnormal rate of disability in the county.

"Millions of people have been removed from welfare rolls in the last 15 years, and politicians have patted themselves on the back for that," host Ira Glass says in a promo for the episode. "But at the very same time, the same number of people have signed up for government disability checks."

"It's ballooned from 8 million to 14 million people," Glass says.

NPR reporter Chana Joffe-Walt spent six months investigating the rise of disability in the U.S. for

and

Some of that time was spent in Hale County, where she interviewed one person who surely qualifies for disability, another who was questionable, a retired judge, and a doctor who, in disability cases, asks patients what grade they finished:

Joffe-Walt also investigated the rise in the number of children on disability, private contractors who are paid to move people from welfare rolls to disability, and the portion of the legal profession dedicated to filing appeals for those who were denied disability benefits.

The "This American Life" episode will air at 3 p.m. Saturday on

, and will re-air at 3 p.m. on

in Birmingham. It will also be available at the

at 7 p.m. Sunday.

You can read Chana Joffe-Walt's companion report, "Unfit for Work,"

.