WI23-16: Automation and the Decline in Social Security Disability Insurance Applications

SSDI application rates rose from the early 1990s until a sharp decline began in 2010. Various factors, such as improved economic conditions, aging Baby Boomers, better workforce support for disabled individuals, changes in claim processing, and lack of program awareness, have been suggested to explain this trend. This study examines the relationship between SSDI applications and the spread of automation technologies. Automation could infuence SSDI applications by displacing workers and reducing wages or by making workplaces safer and less injury-prone, thus afecting the number of disability claims. Using confdential data on SSDI applications at the commuting-zone level, we estimate the efect of automation exposure on application rates across age and gender groups from 2005–2019. Our fndings suggest that SSDI application rates for the 18–64 age group decline with greater automation exposure. This efect is more pronounced in the 35–54 and 55–64 age groups. While automation exposure has minimal impact on younger workers (18–34), the 35–54 age group experiences the largest negative efect, with smaller yet statistically signifcant efects for the 55–64 age group. These patterns hold across broadly (automation-intensive employment shares) and narrowly (industrial robots) defned measures of automation exposure