Disability Insurance

The Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) program pays cash benefits to nonelderly adults who are judged to be unable to perform “substantial” work because of a disability but who have worked in the past; the program also pays benefits to some of those adults’ dependents. CBO produces projections of the DI program’s finances under current law and analyzes options for changing the program.

Report
Options for Reducing the Deficit: 2025 to 2034
December 12, 2024
CBO periodically issues a compendium of policy options and their estimated effects on the federal budget. This report presents 76 options for altering spending or revenues to reduce federal budget deficits over the next decade.
Report
CBO’s 2024 Long-Term Projections for Social Security
August 28, 2024
In CBO’s projections, spending for Social Security rises relative to GDP over the next 75 years, and the gap between outlays and revenues widens. If combined, the balances in the program’s trust funds would be exhausted in fiscal year 2034.
Report
Options for Reducing the Deficit, 2023 to 2032--Volume II: Smaller Reductions
December 7, 2022
CBO issues a volume that contains short descriptions of 59 policy options that would each reduce the federal budget deficit by less than $300 billion over the next 10 years.
Interactive
How Changing Social Security Could Affect Beneficiaries and the System's Finances
April 24, 2019
This interactive tool lets the user explore seven policy options that could be used to improve the finances of the Social Security program and delay the exhaustion of its trust funds.
Graphic
The Social Security Disability Insurance Program - Infographic
July 16, 2012
CBO projects that in 2022, the Social Security Disability Insurance program will provide benefits totaling $204 billion to over 12.3 million disabled workers and their dependents.