New high of 8,853,614 now collecting federal disability payments

Via The Atlantic:

Many people may really need this, but the above chart proves SSDI applications relate to unemployment numbers strongly...

(CNSNews.com) – The number of American workers collecting federal disability payments climbed to yet another record of 8,853,614 in March, up from 8,840,427 in February, according to newly released data from the Social Security Administration.
That means there are more than 3 times as many Americans taking disability payments as there are people living in the city of Chicago, which according to the Census Bureau has a population of 2,707,120.

March was the 194th straight month that the number of American workers collecting federal disability payments increased. The last time the number of Americans collecting disability decreased was in January 1997. That month the number of workers taking disability dropped by 249 people—from 4,385,623 in December 1996 to 4,385,374 in January 1997.

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