An empirical analysis of the social security disability application, appeal, and award process

Benı́tez-Silva, Hugo; Buchinsky, Moshe; Chan, Hiu Man; Rust, John; Sheidvasser, Sofia

doi:10.1016/s0927-5371(99)00014-7

Cited by 95 publications

(73 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Other work has measured the health and demographic characteristics that are associated with disability program application, appeals and awards. See, for example, Lahiri et al (1995), Benitez-Silva et al (1999) and Kreider and Riphahn (1999). Bound (1989) and Chen and van der Klaauw (2008) both use survey data to compare the health and economic behavior of rejected and accepted DI applicants.…”

Section: Institutional Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Disability Screening Process and the Labor Market Behavior of Accepted and Rejected Applicants: Evidence from the Health and Retirement Study

Giertz

Kubik

2011

J Labor Res

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This paper uses Social Security earnings records linked to data from the Health and Retirement Study to examine the labor market behavior of rejected and accepted disability applicants prior to their application. We find that rejected applicants have substantially lower earnings and labor force participation rates during the decade prior to application than beneficiaries. Also, we find some evidence of a divergence between these groups, with rejected applicants leaving the labor force at a faster rate than beneficiaries as their application date approaches. One interpretation of these results is that the disability screening process on average separates those who are at least partially motivated by adverse economic circumstances when applying for disability benefits from other applicants.

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Section: Institutional Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Disability Screening Process and the Labor Market Behavior of Accepted and Rejected Applicants: Evidence from the Health and Retirement Study

Giertz

Kubik

2011

J Labor Res

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“…However, monthly SSI benefits are significantly lower, averaging only $455 per month in 2006. Notice, however, that as of December of 2006, over 1.2 million Americans were receiving both OASDI Disability benefits and SSI, indicating that a non-trivial 8 We refer the reader to the work of Stapleton et al (1994), Lahiri et al (1995), Benítez-Silva et al (1999, 2004, Bound and Berkhauser (1999), and Haveman and Wolfe (2000) provide careful descriptions and analysis of these programs. 9 The SGA for nonblind persons is $980 a month, and it is $1,640 a month for the blind.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Disability, capacity for work and the business cycle: an international perspective

2010

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"Important policy issues arise from the high and growing number of people claiming disability benefits for reasons of incapacity for work in OECD countries. Economic conditions play an important part in explaining both the stock of disability benefit claimants and inflows to and outflows from that stock. Employing a variety of cross-country and country-specific household panel data sets, as well as administrative data, we find strong evidence that local variations in unemployment have an important explanatory role for disability benefit receipt, with higher total enrolments, lower outflows from rolls and, often, higher inflows into disability rolls in regions and periods of above-average unemployment. In understanding the nature of the cyclical fluctuations and trends in disability it is important to distinguish between work disability and health disability. The former is likely to be influenced by economic conditions and welfare programmes while the latter evolves in a slower fashion with medical technology and demographic changes. There is little evidence of health disability being related to the business cycle, so cyclical variations are driven by work disability. The rise in unemployment due to the current global economic crisis is expected to increase the number of disability insurance claimants." Copyright (c) CEPR, CES, MSH, 2010.

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“…Several authors pointed out that there is not evidence of systematic errors in respondent answers. They sustain that self-reported measures are a trustworthy indicator of health status, and may be considered as a first approximation to true disability status (Nagi [23], Stern [24], Dwyer and Mitchell [25], Benítez-Silva et al [26]). This result is strengthened by the confidentiality of the responses, because individuals do not have incentives to missreport in order to increase the probability of receiving any kind of SS benefit.…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

A Sequential Model for Older Workers' Labor Transitions After a Health Shock

2005

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In this work we study older workers' (50-64) labor force transitions after a health/disability shock. We find that the probability of keeping working decreases with both age and severity of the shock. Moreover, we find strong interactions between age and severity in the 50-64 age range and none in the 30-49 age range. Regarding demographics we find that being female and married reduce the probability of keeping work. On the contrary, being main breadwinner, education and skill levels increase it. Interestingly, the effect of some demographics changes its sign when we look at transitions from inactivity to work. This is the case of being married or having a working spouse. Undoubtedly, leisure complementarities should play a role in the latter case. Since the data we use contains a very detailed information on disabilities, we are able to evaluate the marginal effect of each type of disability either in the probability of keeping working or in returning back to work. Some of these results may have strong policy implications.

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An empirical analysis of the social security disability application, appeal, and award process

Cited by 95 publications

References 5 publications

The Disability Screening Process and the Labor Market Behavior of Accepted and Rejected Applicants: Evidence from the Health and Retirement Study

The Disability Screening Process and the Labor Market Behavior of Accepted and Rejected Applicants: Evidence from the Health and Retirement Study

Disability, capacity for work and the business cycle: an international perspective

A Sequential Model for Older Workers' Labor Transitions After a Health Shock

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