Over the past two decades, the share of working age Americans collecting disability insurance payments has doubled, from 2.3 to 4.6 percent of the population aged 25 to 64, with the largest increases coming among women.

The rapid growth of Disability Insurance does not appear to be from a true rise in disabling illness, but rather from policies that increased the subjectivity of the disability screening process.

The U.S. disability system is failing--growing at an unsustainable pace for taxpayers and delivering relatively poor outcomes to those with disabilities.

This paper compares a variety of measures of fatness in terms of their ability to predict application for Social Security Disability Insurance.

The costs of disability programs are rising at an unsustainable pace. In all likelihood this will produce calls for program reforms. More systematic solutions should be considered, like experience rating SSDI payroll taxes.

Changes in Social Security policy have reduced the willingness of employers to provide accommodations and rehabilitation and their workers to seek them by making access to DI benefits much easier for workers and failing to make their employers more directly pay for their movement onto the rolls.

A system that lets participants choose between the traditional system and a lower-cost settlement paid in inflation-adjusted Treasuries could ensure the program's solvency.

While difficult to achieve, fundamental disability reform is possible.