Disabilities happen for many reasons. They can be related to illness and disease. They can come from accidents — everything from car accidents to workplace accidents. You can find disabilities tied to mental conditions, physical conditions, and more.
With so many different areas to take into account, you may assume there are more disabled workers in 2019 than they have been in previous years. After all, with the overall population rising every year, wouldn’t that make sense?
The reality is that there were actually fewer disabled workers getting awards from the Social Security Administration (SSA) in 2018 than there were in 2017, the last two full calendar years on record. In 2017, the number of awards given out was 762,141. In 2018, it fell to 733,879. That’s a drop of 3.71%.
In fact, if you go back to 2011, you will find a decline in awards in every single year but one. That year was 2017, when the number jumped by 2.40% as compared to 2016. As you can see from the above, it more than corrected itself the following year, in 2018, to stay on track for an overall decline.
Of course, the statistics make it clear that this is still a significant issue for a lot of people — nearly three-quarters of a million of them. A disability impacts your quality of life, your happiness, your ability to work, your options for income, and much more. It is absolutely crucial that you know about all of the legal options you have when suffering from any type of disability at all in 2019.