National Beneficiary Survey: Disability Statistics, 2019 provides key descriptive statistics from the 2019 National Beneficiary Survey (NBS), including beneficiary characteristics and health, program and service participation, employment interest and activity, job characteristics, and benefits and employment interaction.

The NBS, sponsored by the Social Security Administration (SSA), collects data on a wide range of variables not available in SSA's administrative systems. It provides SSA, Congress, researchers, and policymakers with information about key factors that contribute to Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) beneficiaries' and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients' successful or unsuccessful employment efforts.

Paul O'Leary and Seth Hartig prepared this statistical report. Ben Pitkin and Jessie Dalrymple edited it and designed it for publication.

Direct any questions, ideas, or comments about the publication to ORDES.NBS@ssa.gov.

Susan B. Wilschke
Associate Commissioner for Disability Policy
May 2025

The 2019 NBS collected 9,092 responses from DI beneficiaries and SSI recipients aged 18 to full retirement age. Respondents included DI beneficiaries (disabled workers, disabled adult children, and disabled widow(er)s) as well as SSI blind and disabled recipients (throughout the publication we use the term “beneficiaries” to refer to both DI beneficiaries and SSI recipients). The survey pooled a representative sample of beneficiaries from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Data collection began in February 2019 and ended in December 2019.

SSA through its NBS contractor, Mathematica, conducts the NBS using computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI), with computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) available for beneficiaries who do not respond to the CATI survey or who request an in-person interview. (No 2019 NBS respondents requested a CAPI interview.) When a beneficiary is unable to respond because of his or her disability, a proxy respondent is used; but whenever possible, the beneficiary is interviewed directly.

In addition to providing key information on a nationally representative sample of adult beneficiaries, each NBS round typically includes a topical module that focuses on a targeted subsample of beneficiaries. The 2019 survey included two subsamples. The first is a representative sample of beneficiaries from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The second is a “successful workers” sample of individuals who met the criteria for inclusion in the representative sample and (a) were younger than 62 at sample selection, (b) had earnings above the level defined as “substantial gainful activity” for nonblind workers for 3 or more consecutive months after August 1, 2018, and (c) had worked recently (within the 6 months prior to interview).

Some of the NBS questions changed substantially between the 2015 and 2019 survey rounds. As a result, some of the statistics in this volume are not directly comparable with those in the previous edition of this publication.

Except where otherwise noted, all statistics are weighted to represent the national adult DI and SSI beneficiary population. Because of rounding, the total weighted numbers shown in some tables may not equal the sum of their components. Similarly, rounded components of percentage distributions do not necessarily sum to 100.0.