From January to March 2016, there were 575,078 applications for SSDI disabled worker benefits. In the same three months of 2015, there were 604,831 initial applications – nearly a 5% decline.
The percentage of initial claims that resulted in an award of benefits increased slightly: the rate was 31.1% in the first three months of 2015 and 32.2% in the same period of 2016.
There are 8,888,588 people receiving SSDI as disabled workers in March 2016. This number has decreased in 13 of the past 15 months and six of the last ten quarters.