CNS
One in three, or 35.2 percent, of people getting federal disability insurance benefits have been diagnosed with a mental disorder, according to the latest data from the Social Security Administration (SSA).
The largest "diagnostic group" for disabled beneficiaries was a mental disorder. Of the 10,228,364 disabled people receiving federal disability benefits in December 2013, according to the report, 3,599,417, or 35.2 percent, were diagnosed with a mental disorder.
Washington, D.C., the seat of the federal government, ranked in the top-ten list of states where disabled beneficiaries were diagnosed with mental problems. At the bottom of the list were Alabama (28.8% diagnosed with a mental disorder); Georgia (29.1%), South Carolina (29.7%), and Arkansas and Louisiana (30.2% each).
Disabled beneficiaries have increased 49.7 percent from a decade ago in 2003 when there were 6,830,714 beneficiaries; and the number is up 14.3 percent from the 8,945,376 beneficiaries in 2009, the year President Obama took office.