This section presents projections of the numbers of persons receiving Federal SSI payments by category and age group.
1 The SSI recipient categories of (1)
aged or (2)
blind or
disabled identify the criteria under which the recipient established eligibility for SSI benefit
s. The following paragraphs discuss the recipient categories in more detail.
Table IV.B1 presents historical and projected numbers of persons applying for SSI benefits, by calendar year. Figure IV.B1 presents the same information in graphical form. Experience within the past decade shows the number of applications growing fairly rapidly beginning in calendar year 2002, with the growth continuing through calendar year 2005. The rate of growth in applications slowed significantly from 2005 to 2007, but started increasing again in 2008, with a noteworthy 14 percent increase in 2009, largely due to the economic recession. The level of applications remained high in 2010 with a further 2 percent increase over 2009. Two main factors contributed to the fairly rapid growth in applications from 2002 to 2004: (1) the downturn in the economy that began early in 2001 and (2) implementation of the signature proxy process
3 that SSA introduced in June 2004. We presume that the current downturn caused the recent
large increase in applications. During the continued economic slowdown, we project higher levels of unemployment, resulting in substantially more applications than the general trend suggests. We expect fewer applications as the economy recovers. Some of the earlier additional applications will be cases that would have applied in a later year, so, for a brief period, we expect fewer applications than the general trend suggests. In the longer term, we estimate that applications will grow roughly in line with overall population growth.
As part of our adjudication of these applications, we evaluate levels of income and resources available to the applicants, as well as other eligibility factors including marital and citizenship status and living arrangements. In addition, well over 90 percent of the applications are for disability benefits which require the appropriate State DDS to evaluate the alleged impairment. Applicants may appeal an unfavorable disability determination through several administrative levels of appeal. If an applicant exhausts all administrative levels of appeal, he or she may carry the appeal to the Federal courts.
4
Table IV.B2 and figure
IV.B2 present historical and projected numbers of persons who start receiving SSI payments as a result of this decision process. We count individuals as of the first month that they move into SSI payment status. For this reason, we refer to these individuals as “
new recipients” rather than “
awards.”
5 From 2002 to 2004, growth in new recipients did not keep pace with the growth in applications, and from 2005 to 2007, the numbers of new recipients declined, even though the numbers of applications increased. Two main factors contributed to the slower growth for new recipients as compared to applications. First, since 2001 the number of claims pending adjudication significantly increased. This
growth was consistent with a longer lag time between application and the allowance decision. Second, after the introduction of the signature proxy process, the number of denials for applications not meeting the nonmedical criteria increased significantly, causing a permanent downward shift in the allowance rate. Starting in 2008, however, the numbers of new recipients increased substantially. This increase was likely attributable to: (1) the sharp increase in applications; (2) improvements in claims processing; and (3) an initiative to accelerate the processing of cases pending adjudication. Consistent with the projected applications, we project the total number of new recipients to peak in 2011 and decline thereafter to a relative low point by 2017. Over the longer term, we project the number of new recipients to increase gradually in line with the projected growth in applications.
Some persons receiving SSI benefits in a year will stop receiving payments during the year because of death or the loss of SSI eligibility. A recipient can lose eligibility in two ways: (1) a nonmedical redetermination; or (2) a continuing disability review (CDR).
6 In a redetermination, we reexamine the recipient's nonmedical factors of eligibility, including income and resources. In a CDR, we determine whether the recipient continues to meet the Social Security Act's definition of disability. For example, disabled children, upon attainment of age 18, lose eligibility if they do not qualify for benefits under the disabled adult eligibility criteria. We refer to the net reduction in the number of SSI recipients in
current-payment status during a period as the number of SSI terminations for that period.
In the following tables, we have separated the numbers of persons moving out of payment status into terminations due to death (table
IV.B3), and terminations for all other reasons (table
IV.B4). Table
IV.B5 and figure
IV.B3 present historical and projected numbers of total terminations by calendar year. The actual number of terminations in 2010 continued at a fairly high level despite declining more than 3 percent from 2009 levels. The reduction in the number of terminations is due to a decline in the number of terminations
