The Social Security Amendments of 1983 reduced the generosity of Social Security retired worker benefits in the U.S. by increasing the program's full retirement age from 65 to 67 and increasing the penalty for claiming benefits at the early retirement age of 62. These changes were phased in gradually, so that individuals born in or before 1937 were unaffected and those born in 1960 or later were fully affected. No corresponding changes were made to the program's disabled worker benefits, and thus the relative generosity of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits increased. In this paper, we investigate the effect of the Amendments on SSDI enrollment by exploiting variation across birth cohorts in the policy-induced reduction in the present value of retired worker benefits. Our findings indicate that the Amendments significantly increased SSDI enrollment since 1983, with an additional 0.6% of men and 0.9% of women between the ages of 45 and 64 receiving SSDI benefits in 2005 as a result of the changes. Our results further indicate that these effects will continue to increase during the next two decades, as those fully exposed to the reduction in retirement benefit generosity reach their fifties and early sixties. AbstractThe Social Security Amendments of 1983 reduced the generosity of Social Security retired worker benefits in the U.S. by increasing the program's full retirement age from 65 to 67 and increasing the penalty for claiming benefits at the early retirement age of 62. These changes were phased in gradually, so that individuals born in or before 1937 were unaffected and those born in 1960 or later were fully affected. No corresponding changes were made to the program's disabled worker benefits, and thus the relative generosity of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits increased. In this paper, we investigate the effect of the Amendments on SSDI enrollment by exploiting variation across birth cohorts in the policy-induced reduction in the present value of retired worker benefits. Our findings indicate that the Amendments significantly increased SSDI enrollment since 1983, with an additional 0.6 percent of men and 0.9 percent of women between the ages of 45 and 64 receiving SSDI benefits in 2005 as a result of the changes. Our results further indicate that these effects will continue to increase during the next two decades, as those fully exposed to the reduction in retirement benefit generosity reach their fifties and early sixties.
for helpful comments and suggestions. The study is supported financially by a Steven H. Sandell Grant, administered by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College and funded by SSA. All comments and errors are the authors and do not reflect the views of SSA.
The U.S. Department of Veterans' Affairs (VA) currently provides disability benefits to 2.72 million veterans of U.S. military service through the Disability Compensation (DC) program. Until recently, the medical eligibility criteria for this program were the same across service eras, with the key condition being that the disability was caused or aggravated by military service. But in July of 2001, the VA relaxed the eligibility criteria for Vietnam veterans by including diabetes in the list of conditions covered by DC. This change was motivated by an Institute of Medicine report, which linked exposure to Agent Orange and other herbicides used by the U.S. military in Vietnam, to the onset of diabetes. In this paper, we investigate the impact of this policy change on DC enrollment, expenditures, and the sensitivity of the program to economic conditions. Our findings demonstrate that the Agent Orange decision increased DC enrollment by 7.6 percentage points among Vietnam veterans and that an additional 3.3 percent enjoyed an increase in their DC benefits. Our estimates further suggest that the policy change increased program expenditures by $2.69 billion during the 2006 fiscal year and by $45 billion in present value terms. After the policy took effect, we find that the sensitivity of the program to local economic conditions increased substantially. Taken together, our results suggest that even relatively narrow changes in the medical eligibility criteria for federal disability programs can have a powerful effect on program enrollment and expenditures.
The Social Security Amendments of 1983 reduced the generosity of Social Security retired worker benefits in the U.S. by increasing the program's full retirement age from 65 to 67 and increasing the penalty for claiming benefits at the early retirement age of 62. These changes were phased in gradually, so that individuals born in or before 1937 were unaffected and those born in 1960 or later were fully affected. No corresponding changes were made to the program's disabled worker benefits, and thus the relative generosity of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits increased. In this paper, we investigate the effect of the Amendments on SSDI enrollment by exploiting variation across birth cohorts in the policy-induced reduction in the present value of retired worker benefits. Our findings indicate that the Amendments significantly increased SSDI enrollment since 1983, with an additional 0.6 percent of men and 0.9 percent of women between the ages of 45 and 64 receiving SSDI benefits in 2005 as a result of the changes. Our results further indicate that these effects will continue to increase during the next two decades, as those fully exposed to the reduction in retirement benefit generosity reach their fifties and early sixties.
The Occupation Safety and Health Administration enforces safety regulations through workplace inspections. To identify the effect of inspections on worker safety, this study exploits quasiexperimental variation in inspections due to OSHA's Site Specific Targeting plan. The SST plan used establishment-level data on accidents and injuries to target establishments for inspection. The primary inspection list consisted of establishments with case rates exceeding a cutoff. This cutoff generated a discontinuous increase in inspections, which is used to identify the effect of inspections on worker safety. Using the fuzzy regression discontinuity design and local linear regression, the estimated effect of an inspection on cases involving days away from work, job restrictions, and job transfers is-1.607 per 100 full-time equivalent workers. The effect is most pronounced among manufacturing establishments below the 90th percentile of the case-rate distribution.
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