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)

Income Security for Workers: A Stressed Support System in Need of Innovation

The current mix of public and private programs to support workers after they experience disability onset provides benefits to millions of workers and former workers. Yet, despite the large and growing costs of these programs, the inflation-adjusted household incomes of workers with disabilities have been falling for over two decades, both absolutely and, especially, relative to the incomes of those without disabilities. The aging of the baby boom generation is likely to make matters worse, and the government’s fiscal circumstance will make it increasingly difficult to sustain existing public programs. Current public policy initiatives might eventually improve the disability support system, but they are not likely to ward off the adverse consequences of the pending crisis. Policy changes that leverage existing private sector practices and capabilities might achieve greater success, but have received little attention and are far from proven

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

Pseudo-noise test set for communication system evaluation

A test set for communications systems is described which includes a pseudo noise sequence generator providing a test signal that is fed to a pair of signal channels. The first channel includes a spectrum shaping filter and a conditioning amplifier. The second channel includes a variable delay circuit, a spectrum shaping filter matched to the first filter, and an amplifier. The output of the first channel was applied to the system under test. The output of the system and the output of the second channel are compared to determine the degree of distortion suffered by the test signal due to the communications system

Method of and means for testing a tape record/playback system

A tape record/playback system was tested by first deriving an analog test signal and a band-limited digital reference signal from a pseudo-noise sequence generator driven by a clock signal. It recorded the signals on respective tracks of the system during operation in a record mode. During the playback mode of operation of the system, a delayed analog reference signal without time base variations was reconstructed from the played back reference signal. It was compared with the played back test signal in order to obtain an error signal that was a measure of the performance of the system

Effects of horizontal vibration on hopper flows of granular materials

The current experiments investigate the discharge of glass spheres in a planar wedge-shaped hopper (45 degree sidewalls) that is vibrated hoizontally. When the hopper is discharged without vibration, the discharge occurs as a funnel flow, with the material exiting the central region of the hopper and stagnant material along the sides. With horizontal vibration, the discharge rate increases with the velocity of vibration as compared with the discharge rate without vibration. For a certain range of acceleration parameters (20-30 Hz and accelerations greater than about 1 g), the discharge of the material occurs in an inverted-funnel pattern, with the material along the sides exiting first, followed by the material in the core; the free surface shows a peak at the center of the hopper with the free surface particles avalanching from the center toward the sides. During the deceleration phase of a vibration cycle, particles all along the trailing or low-pressure wall separate from the surface and fall under gravity for a short period before reconnecting the hopper. For lower frequencies (5 and 10 Hz), the free surface remains horizontal and the material appears to discharge uniformly from the hopper