Disability Insurance: Broader Management Focus Needed to Better Control Caseload

GAO discussed the Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) program, focusing on the Social Security Administration's (SSA) initiatives to manage program growth. GAO noted that: (1) the number of disabled beneficiaries has significantly increased in the past 10 years, mainly due to increasing applications and awards, expansions in eligibility criteria, program outreach, and poor economic conditions; (2) the number of DI beneficiaries who also receive supplemental security income has increased 107 percent since 1985; (3) the huge increase in applications and appeals has resulted in huge backlogs for state disability determination services, although backlogs have decreased from their peak in 1992; (4) SSA is implementing 19 short-term initiatives to address its increasing workload; (5) SSA expects to implement a long-term disability reengineering effort over a 6-year period ending in 2000; (6) an increasingly smaller proportion of beneficiaries leave the rolls because of the trend toward younger, mentally impaired adults entering the program and the fear of losing benefits by returning to work; (7) SSA is using computer profiling and beneficiary mail questionnaires to reduce its backlog; and (8) SSA is developing new strategies to employ people with disabilities, but it is too early to assess its efforts.