mr. astrue for your work. you made some reference in your opening statement about online application that has helped deal with the claims. this raises the question of whether disability insurance program has become an alternative on and on employment benefits. those receiving benefits were not disabled. they are obviously contributing to the insolvency problem. two specific questions. why should the economy have a significant impact on the number of claims? our people claiming claims because the economy is bad or because they are actually disabled? second, what are the total number of applications for the fiscal year 2011? how many of those were not approved? >> ok. senator, there has been a fairly body of economic research over the years that shows in times of recession, with a bit of a because of unemployment lag is a ability claims rise. but does not mean that there are not legitimate applications, but there are people who are on the margins and decide to take a chance. as much as we try to make this as bla

mr. astrue. i'd like to indicate what the director of montana thinks, and that is >> increasing case law. so, i'd like to ask you, you know, your thoughts about that. we clearly want to see disability hearings backlog improved, what you're all working on, but the other efforts off to the side. could you just comment on what happened to your agency if we don't get the president's budget request? again, to -- we expect to start dropping below employees of five years ago before terribly long. and the retirements and the attrition do not happen evenly around the organization. so not only do we have the problem that we have fewer people to do the work, we have the wrong people in the wrong places. and with all the restrictions of government, it's not easy to move people and move work in the way that allows for the optimal result. so we expect that we will continue to be contracting the number of field offices that we have. we've already closed virtually all the contact stations. we've closed most of t

mr. astrue for your work. following a little bit on the last conversation you had with senator hatch, but asking a little different direction, you made some reference in your opening statement about the online application that's helped to, quote could deal with the additional economy durbin claims this raises a question of whether disability insurance programs become an alternative and employment benefits those receiving benefits were not disabled slowdown agency's response to those that are disabled and they're obviously to the trust fund insolvency program. to specific questions. why have a significant impact on the number of claims. in other words people shouldn't be silent claims because the economy is bad. what is the total number of applications from fiscal year 2011 and how many were not disapproved. >> there's the economic research over the years that shows that in times of recession with a bit of a lag because of the affect of unemployment compensation that disability applications rise. it doesn't mea