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The Growth in the Social Security Disability Rolls: A Fiscal Crisis Unfolding
The U.S. Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) program has grown dramatically over the last 20 years in size and expense. This growth poses significant risks to the finances of the DI program and the broader Social Security system, and raises troubling questions as to whether the program is being misused by claimants. This article first provides an overview of the Disability Insurance program, describing who qualifies for the program, how an individual applies for benefits and how the level of benefits is determined. Next, we summarize the factors responsible for the growth in the DI rolls and discuss how the characteristics of DI recipients have changed as a result. We then explore the extent of moral hazard in the DI program and the effectiveness of the screening process in distinguishing meritorious from nonmeritorious claims. Finally, we identify the challenges that the DI program creates for Social Security finances and Social Security reform, and discuss potential reforms to the DI program.
Journal Article
Contesting security : strategies and logics
\"This book investigates to what extent the 'logic of security', which underpins securitization, can be contained, rolled back or dismantled. Attempts to study how and whether desecuritization can be contested is faced with two main obstacles: (1) conflict between proponents of desecuritization and students of emancipation; (2) disagreement between scholars of each camp upon the meaning of the concept they use and upon what it entails in practice. Recent attempts to overcome these obstacles have led to the evolution of two new concepts: resistance and resilience. However, individually, the contribution of these concepts is restricted by their singular interpretation of the subject. One aim of this volume is to bring different approaches that aim to counter security logic to confront one another and substantiate their respective analytical value, through empirical evidence. The book comprises four sections, each investigating one specific modality of contesting security: desecuritization, emancipation, resistance and resilience. The overriding objective of this volume is to clearly map out the different ways in which a dominant register of meaning that shapes a specific security formation is debased. These strategies are examined, compared and assessed, in different political and cultural environments. This book will be of much interest to students of critical security studies, securitisation theory, social theory, and IR in general\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
The Welfare Cost of Perceived Policy Uncertainty
Policy uncertainty reduces individual welfare when individuals have limited opportunities to mitigate or insure against the resulting consumption fluctuations. We field an original survey to measure the degree of perceived policy uncertainty in Social Security benefits and to estimate the impact of this uncertainty on individual welfare. Our central estimates show that on average individuals are willing to forgo 6 percent of the benefits they are supposed to get under current law to remove the policy uncertainty associated with their future Social Security benefits. This translates to a risk premium from policy uncertainty equal to 10 percent of expected benefits.
Journal Article
Does Disability Insurance Receipt Discourage Work? Using Examiner Assignment to Estimate Causal Effects of SSDI Receipt
We present the first causal estimates of the effect of Social Security Disability Insurance benefit receipt on labor supply using all program applicants. We use administrative data to match applications to disability examiners and exploit variation in examiners' allowance rates as an instrument for benefit receipt. We find that among the estimated 23 percent of applicants on the margin of program entry, employment would have been 28 percentage points higher had they not received benefits. The effect is heterogeneous, ranging from no effect for those with more severe impairments to 50 percentage points for entrants with relatively less severe impairments.
Journal Article
Optimal Financial Knowledge and Wealth Inequality
We show that financial knowledge is a key determinant of wealth inequality in a stochastic life cycle model with endogenous financial knowledge accumulation, where financial knowledge enables individuals to better allocate lifetime resources in a world of uncertainty and imperfect insurance. Moreover, because of how the US social insurance system works, better-educated individuals have most to gain from investing in financial knowledge. Our parsimonious specification generates substantial wealth inequality relative to a one-asset saving model and one in which returns on wealth depend on portfolio composition alone. We estimate that 30–40 percent of retirement wealth inequality is accounted for by financial knowledge.
Journal Article
Who Is Screened Out? Application Costs and the Targeting of Disability Programs
We study the effect of application costs on the targeting of disability programs. We identify these effects using the closings of Social Security Administration field offices, which provide assistance with filing disability applications. Closings lead to a persistent 16 percent decline in the number of disability recipients in surrounding areas, with the largest effects for applicants with moderately severe conditions and low education levels. Disability applications fall by only 10 percent, implying that the closings reduce targeting efficiency based on current eligibility standards. Increased congestion at neighboring offices appears more important as a channel than higher travel or information costs.
Journal Article