A Guide to Disability Statistics from the American Community Survey

The purpose of this paper is to examine the information on the disability population in a nationally representative survey conducted by the U. S. Census Bureau called the American Community Survey (ACS). The paper is designed to provide a description of the disability data available in the ACS and how the data may be used to assess the employment and economic well-being of the population across states and over time. Descriptive statistics from the 2003 ACS Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) are used to illustrate the type of data analysis that will be useful to policymakers

How Policy Variables Influence the Timing of Social Security Disability Insurance Applications - Policy Brief

While the onset of a health based work limitation will affect a worker’s ability to remain on the job, it does not necessarily result in a swift and certain job exit and transition onto the disability rolls. The decision to leave the workforce and apply for SSDI benefits can be influenced both positively and negatively by policy variables. These two policy thrusts—SSDI transfers to replace lost earnings and accommodation to increase duration on the job—can send mixed signals to workers who experience the onset of a disability. Hence, understanding how such policies influence behavior for those who experience a disability is critical in developing policies that fully integrate people with disabilities into the workforce

A Guide to Disability Statistics from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics

This User Guide provides information on the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). The 2003 PSID is a nationally representative sample of over 7,000 families. The PSID began in 1968 with a sample of 4,800 families and re-interviewed these families on an annual basis from 1968-1997. Since then, it has re-interviewed them biennially. Following the same families and individuals since 1968, the PSID collects data on economic, health, and social behavior. (See http://psidonline.isr.umich.edu/ for detailed information on the PSID). Initially, the PSID identified disability by asking the head of the household whether he, or she when no adult male is present, had a physical or nervous condition that limits his or her ability to work. In 1981 the PSID began asking the head this question with respect to his spouse. Additional questions that provide an opportunity to expand this definition of disability were included in 2003. The User Guide makes use of these new questions to estimate the size of the population with disabilities and the prevalence rate of disability in the population, as well as the employment rate and level of economic well-being. The major strength of the PSID for those interested in disability research is its long-running information on families. No other nationally representative survey has captured such detailed information on the same families over such a long time. Such longitudinal data allows researchers to better understand the dynamics of the disability process and its consequences. Here we demonstrate the comparative advantage of the PSID over traditional cross-sectional data sets. Using the PSID, we identify persons with disabilities of various lengths and show the sensitivity of alternative definitions of the population with disabilities based on the duration of a disability. We also measure how the employment and economic well-being of individuals changes following the onset of a disability. Finally, we provide examples of how the PSID has been used with the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) to compare the employment and economic well-being of working-age people with disabilities in the United States and Germany. This analysis uses the equivalized data from these longitudinal datasets contained in the Cornell University Cross-National Equivalent File (CNEF)

How Postsecondary Education Improves Adult Outcomes for Supplemental Security Income Children with Severe Hearing Impairments

This is a case study of SSI children who apply for postsecondary education at the National Technical Institute of the Deaf (NTID) within the Rochester Institute of Technology. We estimate the likelihood that an SSI child will graduate from NTID relative to other hearing impaired NTID applicants and estimate the influence of graduation from NTID on participation in the SSI adult program and later success in the labor market. To do so we create a unique longitudinal administrative records data set (n=5,638) based on administrative records from NTID linked to Social Security Administration (SSA) microdata. We find that SSI children who graduate from NTID spend less time on the SSI adult program and have higher earnings than those who do not graduate. However, we also find that SSI children who apply to NTID have a greater risk of not graduating than their fellow deaf students who did not participate in the SSI program as children. Our findings suggest that greater effort may be necessary to prepare SSI children for postsecondary education and that the currently SSA-funded youth transition demonstration projects are necessary to explore how such efforts can improve adult outcomes for SSI children with disabilities

How policy variables influence the timing of applications for Social Security Disability Insurance

This article analyzes the impact of policy variables - employer accommodations, state Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) allowance rates, and DI benefits - on the timing of an application for DI benefits by workers with a work-limiting health condition starting when their health condition first begins to bother them. The analysis uses data from the Health and Retirement Study linked to Social Security administrative records. We find that most workers do not apply immediately for DI benefits when they are first bothered by a health condition. The median working-age man (woman) with a work-limiting condition waits 7 (8) years after that time before applying. Using kernel density estimates of the distribution of application and non-application ordered by state allowance rates (the rate of acceptance per DI determination in each state), we find that both men and women who live in states with high allowance rates are disproportionately more likely to apply for benefits in the first year after their condition begins to bother them than are those in states with low allowance rates. Using a hazard model, we find that workers who live in states with higher allowance rates apply for DI benefits significantly sooner than those living in states with lower allowance rates following the onset of a work-limiting health condition. Workers who are accommodated following the onset of a work-limiting health condition, however, are significantly slower to apply for DI benefits

The Importance of Anti-Discrimination and Workers’ Compensation Laws on the Provision of Workplace Accommodations Following the Onset of a Disability

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) was the first federal disability-based anti-discrimination law that applied to a broad range of workers. Whereas some studies have focused on its impact on workplace accommodation, this is the first to do so while accounting for previous state anti-discrimination and Workers’ Compensation laws. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, the authors find that prior to the implementation of the ADA, employers were more likely to accommodate workers if their disability onset was work-related and hence likely to be covered by Workers’ Compensation laws. State anti-discrimination laws significantly increased accommodations to workers whose disabilities were not work-related, effectively bringing their accommodation rates in line with workers whose disabilities were. Though implementation of the ADA increased accommodation for all workers, the authors point out that failure to account for pre-existing state anti-discrimination and Workers’ Compensation laws will underestimate its effect

Participation in Programs Designed to Improve Employment Outcomes for Persons with Psychiatric Disabilities: Evidence from the New York WORKS Demonstration Project

The New York WORKS demonstration project was designed to improve employment outcomes for persons with psychiatric disabilities receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) disability payments. This article shows how the individual characteristics of participants were related to outcomes at each stage of the multistage recruitment process used in the project and how those characteristics contributed to enrollment. The findings are important to program administrators who are interested in ensuring that SSI recipients receive equal access to employment-related services and who want to improve recruitment strategies for future demonstration projects. The New York WORKS recruitment process used administrative records from the Social Security Administration (SSA) to identify the population of over 68,000 SSI recipients with a diagnosis of a psychiatric disability in Erie County and New York City. Staff involved in the project documented the results of each stage of the recruitment process. The New York WORKS project included four stages: (1) the provision of information (sending a letter and information packet); (2) demonstrated awareness of the project (response to a letter containing an overview of the project); (3) expression of interest (indication of interest in the project, using a postmarked form returned to New York WORKS project staff); and (4) participation (actual enrollment in the program). The project staff members were also able to identify data from administrative records that described the characteristics of the population, including age, sex, type of psychiatric diagnosis, the number of months that the person collected benefits before the recruitment process, employment experience before the recruitment process, and annual earnings in the year before the recruitment process. The data on outcomes at each stage of the recruitment process and the characteristics of SSI recipients were analyzed using an empirical method recently suggested by Heckman and Smith. The analysis identified the relationship between the characteristics of SSI recipients and the outcomes at each stage of the recruitment process and demonstrated how those characteristics contributed to the overall likelihood of enrollment. Published as: Ruiz-Quintanilla, A., Weathers, R. R., Melburg, V., Campbell, K., & Madi, N. (2006). Participation in Programs Designed to Improve Employment Outcomes for Persons with Psychiatric Disabilities: Evidence from the New York WORKS Demonstration Project. Social Security Bulletin 66 (2), 49-79. For full text see publisher’s website: http://www.socialsecurity.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v66n2/v66n2p49.pdfDE92A_PDF1.pdf: 224 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Counting Working-Age People with Disabilities: What Current Data Tell Us and Options for Improvement

This book provides a systematic review of what current statistics and data on working-age people with disabilities can and cannot tell us, and how the quality of the data can be improved to better inform policymakers, advocates, analysts, service providers, administrators, and others interested in the at-risk population.disabilities, data, disabled workers, SSI, SSDI