SSA Criticized for Wait and Denial of Claims

CBS Evening news piece on the wait for individuals to receive Social Security and the amount of individuals turned down for SSI/SSDI

Thanks for supporting Maine VRC.

SSA Releases Annual Statistics

If you're a data person, SSA has released their annual statistics for SSDI for 2007.

Some highlights include

• Disability benefits were paid to more than 8.1 million people.
• Benefits were terminated for 522,349 disabled workers.
• Average age was slightly over 52.
• Men represented about 53 percent.
• Mental disorders was the diagnosis for about a third

On a similar vein, Amateur Economist has an article People With Disabilities in the U.S. Labor Market. It has a few more frightening statistics

• 37.7% of people with disabilities in the U.S. population were in employment in 2006
• people with disabilities earned an average of $33,109 compared with $43,269 for non-disabled employees.

And they make the argument that "Since there are around 30.6 million people aged between 21 and 64 in the U.S. who have some form of disability, this group represents a potentially valuable source of recruitment that is likely to become increasingly important as the size of the working age population in the U.S. declines due to demographic change."

Thanks for supporting Maine VRC.