From the Washington Post:
Social Seccurity Disability, or SSDI, is an earned benefit that prevents abject poverty for millions of Americans with impairments so severe they cannot perform substantial work. Congress narrowly tailored SSDI’s eligibility rules to efficiently target scarce tax dollars. Many SSDI beneficiaries are terminally ill — about one in five men die within five years of first receiving benefits. Nearly one in three beneficiaries is over age 60.
Demographics account for almost all the growth in SSDI. The baby boomers are entering their high disability years, and the large-scale entry of women into the workforce in the 1970s and 1980s allows more to qualify for SSDI today. Story under this link: