U.S. Social Security Administration, Office of Policy

Annual Statistical Report on the Social Security Disability Insurance Program, 2005

(released September 2006)
 

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Contact Information

Your suggestions and comments on this report are welcome and should be directed to Kevin Kulzer at 410-965-5366 or di.asr@ssa.gov. For specific questions about the data, please call or e-mail the contact listed on each table. For additional copies of the report, please e-mail op.publications@ssa.gov or call 202-358-6274.

Highlights 2005

Size and Scope of the Social Security Disability Program

  • Disability benefits were paid to approximately 7.5 million people.
  • Awards to disabled workers (821,207) accounted for about 90 percent of awards to all disabled beneficiaries (909,681).
  • Payments to disabled beneficiaries totaled almost $76 billion.
  • Benefits were terminated for 499,662 disabled workers.
  • Supplemental Security Income payments were another source of income for about 1 out of 6 disabled beneficiaries.

Profile of Disabled-Worker Beneficiaries

  • Workers accounted for the largest share of disabled beneficiaries (87 percent).
  • Average age was nearly 52.
  • Men represented about 54 percent.
  • Mental disorders was the diagnosis for about a third.
  • Average monthly benefit received was $938.
  • Supplemental Security Income payments were another source of income for about 1 out of 7.

Preface

Since 1956, the Social Security program has provided cash benefits to people with disabilities. This annual report provides program and demographic information about the people who receive those benefits. The basic topics covered are

  • beneficiaries in current-payment status;
  • workers' compensation and public disability benefits;
  • benefits awarded, withheld, and terminated;
  • disabled workers who have returned to work;
  • outcomes of applications for disability benefits; and
  • disabled beneficiaries receiving Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, or both.

Kia Masseaux compiled this report for publication, and Carolyn A. Harrison managed the project. Carolyn A. Harrison, Art Kahn, Kevin Kulzer, and Clark Pickett wrote the programs to process the data and produce the statistical tables. Linda Martin wrote data specifications. Glenda Carter, Kevin Kulzer, Connie Marion, and Linda Martin validated the data. Staff of the Division of Information Resources edited the report and prepared the print and electronic versions for publication.

Linda Drazga Maxfield
Associate Commissioner for Research, Evaluation, and Statistics
September 2006

Errata

The original print and electronic versions of this report contained errors. The following information has been corrected in the electronic version of this report:

  • Table 19-A—programming error resulted in incorrect rounding of the percentage distribution, by age, for "All disabled workers," "Men," and "Women" for 2005. The data were rounded to whole digits instead of to one decimal place.
  • Table 40—The percent listed for Other," "Diseases of the–" for 1960 and 1961 were incorrectly reported as 0 (zero). Footnote "e" replaces those incorrect figures and indicates the correct figures are less than 0.05 percent

[Posted: June 4, 2008.]

Notes

The Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) program provides benefits to retired workers and their dependent family members and to survivors of deceased workers. The Disability Insurance (DI) program provides benefits to disabled workers, their spouses, and children (whether or not disabled).

Benefits are paid from the OASI and DI trust funds. However, not all disabled beneficiaries are paid from the DI trust fund. All disabled widow(er)s' and most disabled adult children's benefits are paid from the OASI trust fund. Persons receiving disability benefits from either trust fund are referred to in this report as Social Security beneficiaries.

Numbers presented in these tables may differ slightly from other published statistics because all tables are based on 100 percent data files. In addition, beginning in 2001, the definition of an award was changed to include secondary benefit awards, subsequent periods of disability, and conversions from one class of child's benefit to another and to exclude reinstated benefits. Those changes resulted in a slight increase in the award counts.

The tables on noninstitutionalized beneficiaries based on the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) have been removed from the Annual Statistical Report on the Social Security Disability Insurance Program, 2005. Because of increased attrition of survey participants over time and increasingly low match rates to administrative data, attempts were made to improve the reliability of estimates based on the SIPP. The Office of Research, Evaluation, and Statistics (ORES) contracted with the Census Bureau to conduct a special SIPP-based interview of Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income beneficiaries. Estimates based on the additional data were not available when this report was published. However, ORES anticipates publishing these estimates in another publication as well as highlighting the changes in the data and the reliability of the estimates. This decision reinforces the inherent differences between the survey data used to produce the estimates of noninstitutionalized beneficiaries and the administrative data used in this publication.

All years are calendar years unless otherwise specified.

Table of Contents

The text, tables, and charts in this publication are available in both HTML and PDF. The tables are also available in Excel.

The following files are available for this document in the given formats:
Entire publication
PDF. XLS.
Background
  • History of the Social Security Disability Insurance Program
  • Definition of Disability
  • Types of Benefits Available
  • Initial Disability Decisionmaking Process
  • Appeals Process
  • Benefit Calculations
  • Benefits Offset and Withheld
  • Work Incentives
  • Benefit Termination
HTML. PDF.
Charts and Tables
Beneficiaries in Current-Payment Status
HTML. PDF. XLS.
Disabled Beneficiaries and Nondisabled Dependents
HTML. PDF. XLS.
All Disabled Beneficiaries
HTML. PDF. XLS.
Disabled Workers
HTML. PDF. XLS.
Disabled-Worker Families
HTML. PDF. XLS.
Beneficiaries Who Have Filed for Workers' Compensation or Public Disability Benefits
HTML. PDF. XLS.
Benefits Awarded, Withheld, and Terminated
HTML. PDF. XLS.
Awards to Disabled Beneficiaries and Nondisabled Dependents
HTML. PDF. XLS.
Awards to All Disabled Beneficiaries
HTML. PDF. XLS.
Awards to Disabled Workers
HTML. PDF. XLS.
Awards to Disabled-Worker Families
HTML. PDF. XLS.
Benefits Withheld from All Disabled Beneficiaries
HTML. PDF. XLS.
Benefits Terminated for All Disabled Beneficiaries
HTML. PDF. XLS.
Disabled Workers Who Work
HTML. PDF. XLS.
Reinstatement Status for Disabled Workers
HTML. PDF. XLS.
Outcomes of Applications for Disability Benefits
HTML. PDF. XLS.
Disabled Beneficiaries Receiving Social Security, SSI, or Both
HTML. PDF. XLS.
Appendix: Sampling Variability
HTML. PDF.
Glossary
HTML. PDF.

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