For a while there it appeared that the number of Social Security disability applications would continue to grow year-after-year with no end in sight. Well, the end appears to not only be in sight, but upon us.
In a Wall Street Journal blog last month, it was reported that Social Security disability applications are falling.
The number of Americans receiving benefits has been hovering around 10.9 million over the last year, but has been in decline since December of 2013. Since 2004, the number of Americans receiving benefits has increased by 42 percent during one of the most lackluster economic decades in history. The increase led budget watchdogs to estimate that Social Security trust fund reserves would be depleted by 2016 or 2017. Those watchdogs and others who were wondering if the increase would ever stop, can now take a collective sigh of relief.
Applications for benefits took an upturn during the most difficult times our economy was facing. Consider that during the height of the economic downturn, 2010, 2.9 million Americans applied for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits, twice as much as in 2000, just a decade earlier.
During the last year, 2013, a total of 2.6 million Americans applied for SSDI benefits, some 300,000 less than in 2010. This was the lowest number of SSDI applications since 2008 and the agency awarded benefits to 884,894 workers, the lowest number since 2007. For more information about the recent trend in the number of Americans who are filing for SSDI benefits click here.
