After many years of steady increase, the number of Americans on disability has now decreased for six straight months. The number of workers on disability is an indicator of the strength of the labor market, since workers with less severe disabilities are better able to hold on to jobs when the economy improves. Social Security figures predict that there will be 750,000 new disability awards in 2015, which is a significant improvement over the over a million new awards that were given out in the years 2009-2012.
See "Drop in Disability Rolls Adds to Signs of U.S. Labor Market Recovery", Howard Schneider and Robert Flaherty, Reuters, April 28, 2015