In the past year the case backlog has worsened appreciably at all levels of adjudication but particularly at the ALJ and court levels. The noted differences in the allowance rates at the different adjudication levels continues (see tables 4 and 5). Some 21,000 disability court cases are pending, and the backlog of ALJ hearing cases has grown to about 130,000 at the present time. If action is not taken this backlog will grow to an estimated 200,000 cases in two years.

TABLE 5.-ADMINISTRATIVE LAW JUDGE REVERSAL RATES—DISABILITY INSURANCE INITIAL DENIALS AND TERMINATIONS, FISCAL YEARS 1979-81

Requests for ALJ hearings were approximately 275,000 for fiscal year 1981, but are estimated to increase to 340,000 in fiscal year 1982 and 416,000 in fiscal year 1983, a 24 percent and 50 percent increase, respectively. The recent increase is due in large part to the decision of the Administration in 1981 to accelerate the examination of the continuing eligibility of persons on the disability rolls which would have been effective in January 1982 under the 1980 Disability Amendments. It is estimated that the Social Security Administration will process 314,000 continuing disability investigations (CDI's) in 1981, 520,000 in 1982, and 832,000 in 1983. See Table 6 for previous years' experience. Although SSA has reservations about the early data reported, the State agencies' review has resulted in 67,897 continuances of benefits and 57,011 cessations (terminations) out of the 124,908 CDI decisions completed by the end of December, 1981, indicating a denial rate of almost 50 percent. However, these individuals are in a group of beneficiaries chosen because it is believed that they are the most likely to be subject to termination.

TABLE 6. CONTINUING DISABILITY INVESTIGATIONS (CDI): TITLE II DISABLED WORKERS, CESSATIONS AND CONTINUATIONS, 1976-80

RECENT EXPERIENCES IN THE DISABILITY PROGRAM

In the past several years, there has been virtually no growth or even a slight decline in the number of beneficiaries (from 4.868 million in 1978 to 4.557 million in August 1981). The number of awards has declined from 592,000 in 1975 to approximately 345,254 in 1981. The incidence of disability (number of awards per 1,000 insured workers) has fallen from an all-time high of 7.1 in 1975 to 3.5 in 1981. The latter is the lowest incidence rate in the history of the program. (See Table 7).

TABLE 7.-DISABLED WORKERS' APPLICATIONS AWARDS AND AWARDS PER 1,000 INSURED, AND UNEMPLOYMENT RATE FOR 1975; 1979 TO 1981

The other element of disability subject to some control-termination for recovery-stood at 42,981 cases in 1971. However, due to budgetary and workload concerns, it averaged less than 40,000 cases over the next 5 years although the number of disabled workers had increased from 1.6 million to 2.6 million. Since 1977 recoveries have increased markedly and stood at 72,325 in 1979 (see Table 8). The recovery rate stood at about 16 per thousand during the period 1974-76 but had risen to 25 per thousand by 1979. Although this is the latest statistic available at this time, the pro

gram of continuing disability investigations (CDI's) will increase this substantially in the next several years.

TABLE 8.-NUMBER OF TERMINATIONS AND GROSS TERMINATION RATES FOR DISABLED WORKER BENEFICIARIES FOR YEARS 1965-79

1 From September 1974 through June 1977, procedures for identifying recovery terminations were defective. Numbers of recovery terminations have been estimated for years 1974 through 1977 on the basis of data from other sources.

Source: Experience of Disabled Worker benefits under OASDI, 1974-78 Actuarial Study No. 81, April 1980.

CHARACTERISTICS OF DI BENEFICIARIES

TABLE 9. PERCENT DISTRIBUTION OF DISABILITY BENEFICIARIES BY AGE AND SEX SELECTED YEARS 1970-75, COMPARED WITH ADULT U.S. POPULATION

TABLE 10. PERCENT DISTRIBUTION OF DISABILITY BENEFICIARIES BY EDUCATION AND OCCUPATION, SELECTED YEARS 1970-75, COMPARED WITH ADULT U.S. POPULATION

1 Derived from 1970 Census. Figures for education based on persons aged 25 and over. Figures for

occupation based on employed population aged 18-64.