Social Security Disability Insurance: Participation and Spending, June 15, 2015: “The Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) program pays cash benefits to nonelderly adults who have worked in the past but are judged to be unable to continue performing substantial work because of a disability. The program also pays benefits to some of those adults’ dependents. In 2015, the DI program paid a total of $143 billion, or about 0.8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), in benefits to almost 9 million disabled beneficiaries and about 2 million of those beneficiaries’ spouses and children. Disabled beneficiaries generally are entitled to Medicare after a two-year waiting period; the cost of those benefits in 2015 was around $85 billion, or about 0.5 percent of GDP, CBO estimates.”