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Title: Understanding the Local-Level Predictors of Disability Program Receipt, Awards, and Beneficiary Work Activity

Citation Type: Conference Paper

Publication Year: 2020

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Abstract: A critical determinant of the decisions made by potential and current disability beneficiaries is the environment in which each beneficiary lives, an idea that is consistent with the social model of disability. Changes in federal policy and strong economic conditions contribute to this environment, but many other factors at the state and local levels might more directly affect beneficiaries’ decisions. For example, living in a rural or urban setting can affect access to public transit and the nature of available job opportunities. Areas in which a large share of adults with disabilities are employed might signal either relatively positive social attitudes about individuals with disabilities as productive workers or fewer physical barriers to transportation or employers. Areas with high prevalence of poor health behaviors, such as smoking and obesity, might signal generally poor health in the population. These factors could also affect the rate at which individuals enter disability programs or increase the likelihood that beneficiaries return to work. Although the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) cannot directly affect state policies or local economic conditions, there is value in understanding the extent to which these factors might correlate with application rates, benefit receipt, and beneficiary return-to-work rates. If certain area-level characteristics predict higher-than-average application or award rates, it could signal the need for an increase in early intervention or vocational rehabilitation services for workers at risk of leaving the labor force and applying for federal disability benefits. However, characteristics correlated with lower-than-average disability beneficiary work activity might help to inform policies, such as targeted mailings on incentives, and programs that support a return to work, such as SSA’s Ticket to Work program. Areas with higher levels of work activity or successful return-to-work by beneficiaries might also alert policymakers to positive local area characteristics that might be emulated in other areas. The contribution of this study is two-fold. First, it adds to the body of evidence on the relationship between local-level factors and disability program outcomes. Numerous studies have documented the geographic variation in the prevalence of disability and in the receipt of federal disability benefits; they have also documented factors that might be correlated with the claiming of disability benefits (see, for example, Rupp 2012; Nichols et al. 2017; Sevak and Schmidt 2018; and Gettens et al. 2018). Our study adds to this literature by assessing how these factors predict flows into and out of Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) programs, as well as beneficiary work activity. The second contribution is that we will release a publicly available repository of locallevel predictors and statistics related to DI and SSI receipt, awards, and beneficiary work outcomes for 2001-2018. Our goal in constructing this dataset is to facilitate future research and policy analysis. The dataset may be useful to other researchers who are studying the effects of policy changes on program outcomes but also wish to control for time-varying covariates that influence award and beneficiary work activity. Local area data are available at the level of Public Use Microdata Areas (PUMAs), which are geographic units created by the U.S. Census for statistical purposes. We determined that PUMAs represent a suitable level of aggregation for our analyses and for the public-use file, as they are specific enough to provide action-oriented information and large enough (in population terms) for rates to be estimated with reasonable precision and to minimize the share of cells masked by SSA for privacy reasons.

Url: https://crr.bc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2020-RDRC-Meeting-Booklet.pdf#page=59

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Authors: Schimmel Hyde, Jody; Luca, Dara Lee; O'Leary, Paul; Schwabish, Jonathan

Conference Name: Retirement and Disability Research Consortium 22nd Annual Meeting

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Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Poverty and Welfare

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