May 23, 2015

Number Drawing Disability Goes Up In April

     The number of people drawing Disability Insurance Benefits from Social Security went up by about 4,000 in April. This was the first increase after six straight months of decline.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Several questions: (1) Does anyone know if the award volume each month is for all levels or just initial claim awards? (2) I believe the monthly award volumes are just totals from the weekly numbers, which means some months have 4 weeks and some have 5. I assume this is based on the number of Fridays in the month, but can someone confirm? (3) Does anyone know why applications were so low in April? Could it have something to do with the riots in Baltimore (was Central Office closed). Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Reduced numbers partly due to steady field office closure/consolidation, the reduction in field office hours and the steady increase in wait times for phone service assistance. Some states, like Oregon & California, saw this coming and are hoarding their own excess claims where normally this time of year they would ship excess claims out to states who case numbers were low. Continued poor management of the phone centers a definite factor in low applications in April.