Transitions from AFDC to SSI Prior to Welfare Reform – Policy Brief

The Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs serve overlapping target groups. SSI serves adults and children with disabilities from low-income families, while TANF serves low-income families with children. Consequently, policy changes in one program can affect the other. The target group for Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), TANF’s predecessor, also overlapped with SSI’s target group. Many have anticipated that the replacement of AFDC with TANF in August 1996 would eventually increase SSI participation as TANF recipients with disabilities sought SSI benefits to avoid TANF work requirements and time limits

Impacts of Expanding Health Care Coverage on the Employment and Earnings of Participants in the SSI Work Incentive Program - Policy Brief

While people with disabilities often say that a loss of public health insurance is a deterrent to work, it is rare to find situations in which they might actually exhibit such a behavioral response to a change in access. Expansions in the income threshold for SSI work incentives program (Sections 1619(a) and (b)) provide an opportunity to observe such a response. Section 1619(b) allows SSI recipients to maintain Medicaid eligibility even if their income is above the level that makes them ineligible for SSI payments. If earnings increase beyond the 1619(b) threshold, however, the person loses their SSI and Medicaid eligibility. Section 1619(b) income thresholds vary significantly across states and over time. Stapleton and Tucker (2000) use the variation in Section 1619(b) income thresholds to examine the employment, earnings and program participation patterns of SSI recipients who have incomes near the threshold level for their state. They find strong evidence that many SSI recipients restrain their earnings to stay below the 1619(b) threshold. It is important to note, however, that the findings only provide evidence on the behavior of a small portion of the population with disabilities (i.e., SSI recipients who work). Nonetheless, this evidence seems to provide strong empirical support for the hypothesis that lack of access to health insurance is an important work disincentive for people with disabilities. They also find that 1619(b) participation varies significantly from month to month. Consequently, cross-sectional estimates on the share of SSI recipients participating in 1619(b) significantly understate the share of SSI recipients who ever participate. These findings are consistent with previous findings that cross-sectional estimates of employment tend to understate multi-period employment patterns for the broader population with disabilities

Review of Data Sources for School to Work Transitions by Youth with Disabilities

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Summary Review of Data Sources for School to Work Transitions by Youth with Disabilities - Policy Brief

This brief summarizes our findings from a review of potential data sources to examine school-to-work transitions by youth with disabilities (Wittenburg and Stapleton, 2000). Our objective was to identify data sources for future school-to-work analyses that contain longitudinal information on youth with disabilities. We conclude that the following data sources are most promising based on our selection criteria: Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP); National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health); Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) 911 Database and RSA’s Longitudinal Study of Vocational Rehabilitation (VR); state administrative data (multiple states); National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88); National Longitudinal Transition Study of Special Education Students (NLTS); National Longitudinal Transition Study of Special Education Students-2 (NLTS-2); and National Longitudinal Survey of Youth: 1997 (NLSY:97)

Non-hermitian Hamiltonians and Painlev\'e IV equation with real parameters

In this letter we will use higher-order supersymmetric quantum mechanics to obtain several families of complex solutions of the Painleve IV equation with real parameters. We shall also study the algebraic structure, the eigenfunctions and the energy spectra of the corresponding non-hermitian Hamiltonians.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure

Regional Caddisfly (Trichoptera) Indicator Species for Mid-Order Michigan and Minnesota Streams

Nearly 150,000 caddisfly specimens representing 238 species were analyzed from 166 5–15m wide streams within Michigan and Minnesota to deter- mine the characteristic indicator species of 5 previously-established regions of caddisfly biological diversity. Based on a combination of relative frequency and abundance, 35 of these species indicated a particular region or regions. Indicator species in forested regions constituted a balance of trophic functional groups, whereas indicator species from agricultural regions were dominated by filtering collectors. While it was difficult to determine if species were indicating natural habitat type or differences in anthropogenic disturbance, establishing indicator species now will render potential future changes to the fauna easier to evaluate

Cycloidal Paths in Physics

A popular classroom demonstration is to draw a cycloid on a blackboard with a piece of chalk inserted through a hole at a point P with radius r = R from the center of a wood disk of radius R that is rolling without slipping along the chalk tray of the blackboard. Here the parametric equations versus time are derived for the path of P from the superposition of the translational motion of the center of mass (cm) of the disk and the rotational motion of P about this cm for r = R (cycloid), r R (prolate cycloid). It is further shown that the path of P is still a cycloidal function for rolling with frictionless slipping, but where the time dependence of the sinusoidal Cartesian coordinates of the position of P is modified. In a similar way the parametric equations versus time for the orbit with respect to a star of a moon in a circular orbit about a planet that is in a circular orbit about a star are derived, where the orbits are coplanar. Finally, the general parametric equations versus time for the path of the magnetization vector during undamped electron-spin resonance are found, which show that cycloidal paths can occur under certain conditions.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figure

A Critical Examination of the FDA’s Efforts to Preempt Failure-to-Warn Claims

This article explores the legality and wisdom of the FDA’s effort to persuade courts to find most failure-to-warn claims preempted. The article first analyzes the FDA’s justifications for reversing its long-held views to the contrary and explains why the FDA’s position cannot be reconciled with its governing statute. The article then examines why the FDA’s position, if ultimately adopted by the courts, would undermine the incentives drug manufacturers have to change labeling to respond to newly-discovered risks. The background possibility of failure-to-warn litigation provides important incentives for drug companies to ensure that drug labels reflect accurate and up-to-date safety information. The article next explains why the agency’s view that it is capable of singlehandedly regulating the safety of drugs is unrealistic. The agency does not have the resources to perform the Herculean task of monitoring the performance of every drug on the market. Both the Institute of Medicine and the Government Accountability Office have explained the shortcomings in the FDA’s recent performance, and they express doubt that the FDA is in capable of facing an increasingly challenging future. The article then explains how state damages litigation helps uncover and assess risks that are not apparent to the agency during a drug’s approval process, and why this “feedback loop” enables the agency to better do its job. FDA approval of drugs is based on clinical trials that involve, at most, a few thousand patients and last a year or so. These trials cannot detect risks that are relatively rare, affect vulnerable sub-populations, or have long latency periods. For this reason, most serious adverse effects do not become evident until a drug is used in larger population groups for periods in excess of one year. Time and again, failure-to-warn litigation has brought to light information that would not otherwise be available to the FDA, to doctors, to other health care providers, and to consumers. And failure-to-warn litigation often has preceded and clearly influenced FDA decisions to modify labeling, and, at times, to withdraw drugs from the market