27% Jump In Disability Claims This Year

This is the day for interesting statistics to jump out at me from mundane articles. Information Week has an article on Social Security's plans for accessing electronic medical records. The article contains no news until you get to the fifth paragraph where unnamed Social Security officials are reported to have said that the agency expects a 27% increase in the number of disability claims filed this fiscal year. We are nearing the end of the fiscal year so this projection will probably turn out to be fairly accurate. Previously, the agency had been projecting a 40% increase in disability claims for this fiscal year, so this may be an improvement. However, the article talks of 3.3 million claims this year, which is the same number that Social Security had been talking about earlier. I do not know why this is reported as a 27% increase at one time and a 40% increase at another time.