The Facts About Disability Insurance

http://www.offthechartsblog.org/the-facts-about-disability-insurance/

From the site:

National Public Radio (NPR) is running a series of stories about the Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) program.  Its first was extremely unbalanced and repeated some of the oft-claimed myths about DI.  Here’s the truth.

DI provides modest but vital benefits to workers who become unable to perform substantial work due to a serious medical impairment, as I testified last week before a House subcommittee.

Most of the recent rise in DI’s rolls stems from demographic factors:  the aging of the baby boom generation, the growth in women’s employment, and Social Security’s rising retirement age.  In fact, when you adjust for these factors, the program has grown only modestly (see chart).  Other factors — including the economic downturn — also have contributed to the program’s growth, but its costs and caseloads are generally in line with past projections.