Good news! This bug seems to be fixed in SAS 9.4 Maint 5. ... View more

Thanks Everyone!  I chose Astounding's response as the answer as it confirms that Proc Means cannot sort variables if "_numeric_" is in the Var Statement. However, Reeza's reply is the best solution for the report I need to build.  Here is a SAS 9.4 link that goes with Reeza's stackods suggestion:   https://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/proc/68954/HTML/default/viewer.htm#p17h6q7ygvkl1sn13qzf947dundi.htm     ... View more

You could use either.  The software recognizes when it is comparing strings of unequal length.  Without changing any of the values of your variables, it will automatically pad the shorter string with blanks as needed in order to make the comparison.  Conveniently, you don't have to add the blanks but you will get the same results. ... View more