Why Did Disability Insurance Rolls Drop from 2015 to 2019?

In 2015, the number of individuals receiving Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) benefits began to drop, reversing an upward trend that had persisted for two decades. Policymakers are interested in the extent to which this drop, which has substantially improved the program’s finances, reflects a permanent shift. This recent drop in DI rolls is due to increased terminations, as beneficiaries age into Social Security’s retirement program, combined with a steep decline in the incidence rate (the number of new DI awards relative to the insured population) starting in 2010. Three factors could be playing a role in the declining incidence rate. First, population aging may have reduced the number of DI applications as workers instead claimed their retirement benefits. Second, a strong economy following the Great Recession made DI less attractive to prospective applicants with some ability to work. And third, policy changes at the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) – specifically, field office closures and a comprehensive retraining of Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) to reduce the rate of benefits awarded on appeal – increased the difficulty of applying and reduced the share of applicants who were accepted. This brief, which is based on a recent study, determines the relative contribution of each factor to the drop in the incidence rate from 2010-2019. The discussion proceeds as follows. The first section provides background on the DI program. The second section highlights trends in the DI rolls over the past 30 years. The third section describes the three factors that could explain the recent decline in the incidence rate. The fourth section outlines the data and methodology for our analysis, while the fifth section displays the results. The final section concludes that a strong economy and the stricter ALJ appeals process each account for about half of the total drop in the incidence rate, while population aging has had only a modest impact.