Offering Solutions to Help Disability Beneficiaries Return to Work
The 2019 Social Security Trustees Report indicates that the Disability Insurance Trust Fund will be insolvent by 2052. Long-term solutions to this insolvency problem require major program reforms. While the primary mission of the 社会保障局 (SSA) is to administer national retirement, 残疾, and survivors benefits programs as required by law, SSA also has legislative authority to conduct research and demonstration projects to test potential changes to its 残疾 programs.
SSA has already conducted several large demonstrations designed to help improve the labor force participation of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) beneficiaries, 并计划继续这样做. 在2019年总统预算中, SSA included a proposal to expand the scope and time period of its current demonstration authorities to facilitate conducting additional demonstrations to test substantive changes to SSDI program rules that would support beneficiaries’ return-to-work efforts. 进一步, SSA has convened Technical Expert Panels to provide recommendations for these new demonstrations.
无限的好处
One of the upcoming demonstrations, referred to as “the ultimate demonstration,” will test removing all perceived financial disincentives to encour年龄 beneficiaries to work.
To learn how SSDI beneficiaries would likely respond to decoupling their benefit from their earnings, 趣赢平台 researchers modeled beneficiaries’ work behavior by comparing them to a propensity score-matched group of participants on the Veterans Affairs (VA) 残疾 program, 哪一个, except for a few special exceptions, does not tie benefits to earnings. 然后, controlling for differences in population characteristics, we estimated the employment rate and earnings expected if SSDI beneficiaries operated under the VA 残疾 program rules of continued cash benefits.
We found that with removal of the earnings caps from SSDI, employment would rise by about 16 percent and aver年龄 annual earnings would increase between $15,600年,22美元,工作人员500人.
作者: 劳里,Ph值.D.和Kevin Baier博士.D., with Jarnee Riley; Jeffrey Taylor, Ph.D.; and Joseph Gasper, Ph.D.
有时间限制的好处
Several experts have written papers regarding potential SSDI policy changes that explore making fundamental changes to the program, such as providing 残疾 benefits on a time-limited basis. Would awarding time-limited benefits to SSDI applicants whose impairments are expected to improve accelerate their return to employment? We think they would if paired with empirically based interventions that would help them achieve employment goals and lessen biopsycho社会 risk factors that may undermine their efforts.
在我们的研究结果, we describe a model for applying transitional benefits and an employability/eligibility service system for these SSDI applicants. We think using such a system can help many beneficiaries return to work by providing them with supports that reduce the emotional, 社会, 经济, and other harmful consequences of long-term 残疾.
作者: 威廉•弗雷Ph值.D.; Robert Drake, M.D., Ph.D.; Gary Bond, Ph.D.; Howard Goldman, M.D., Ph.D.; Jarnee Riley; and Frank Bennici, Ph.D.
