a The number of applications is for disabled-worker benefits only and, as such, excludes disabled child's and disabled widow(er)'s benefits. These applications are those received at Social Security field offices, teleservice centers, and claims filed electronically on the internet. Applications ultimately result in either a denial or award of benefits. These counts include applications that are denied because the individual is not insured for disability benefits. Because the application data are tabulated on a weekly basis, some months include 5 weeks of data while others include only 4 weeks. This weekly method of tabulation accounts for much of the month-to-month variation in the monthly application data. This method also occasionally causes quarterly data to have either 12 or 14 weeks of data instead of 13 weeks, annual data may include an extra week of data. b Receipts at State Disability Determination Services (DDS), Federal Disability Units, Disability Processing Branches, and Extended Service Team Sites for an initial evaluation of whether the claimant's disability meets the definition of disability as set forth in the Social Security Act and appropriate regulations. c Award data prior to 2014 are unedited and may contain duplicates. d Awards as a ratio to applications is a crude measure and does not represent an allowance rate. This ratio expresses the number of awards in a given time period as a ratio to the number of applications in the same time period. Some of the awards in any time period, however, resulted from applications in previous time period(s). e The number of terminations is the number of beneficiaries who leave the disability rolls for any reason. The number is calculated on the basis of the change in the total number of entitled beneficiaries (those in current payment status plus those whose benefits are withheld for any reason) and the number of awards. The termination rate is the ratio of the terminations to the number of beneficiaries who could potentially leave the rolls. This latter number is approximated as the sum of the number entitled at the beginning of the time period plus half the number of awards in that period.