SSDI now covers 11.5 million people, and costs $185 billion per year (including Medicare costs). These are mostly people who are not disabled but are long term unemployed. The SSDI trust fund will run out by 2016, at which time this will start bleeding Social Security dry.
See: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/03/disability-insurance-americas-124-billion-secret-welfare-program/274302/
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In an eye-opening six-month investigation into America’s disability program, Planet Money reporter Chana Joffe-Walt uncovered a “disability industrial complex” fraught with fraud that churns out 14 million checks every month to citizens the government has deemed disabled.
“Since the economy began its slow, slow recovery in late 2009, we’ve been averaging about 150,000 jobs created per month,” said Joffe-Walt in an Public Radio International (PRI) “This American Life” interview. “In that same period every month, almost 250,000 people have been applying for disability.”
Comment: This article says the cost has risen to $260 billion/year.
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