NB24-01: Structural Barriers to Receipt of Income Support and Health Insurance among Adults with Disabilities

After rising for decades, SSDI caseloads have fallen since 2010, even beyond what was predicted as Baby Boomers aged into Social Security retirement benefits. In a current project (NB22-09), we have begun a two-part study to assemble evidence on the racial and ethnic differences in SSDI applications and enrollment. In part one, we used publicly available data on SSDI applications to demonstrate that every step in the process from application to SSDI receipt appears to have become more stringent since the year 2000 (Cutler, Gaye, Meara and Obeidat 2022).
In the second part of the project, we propose a more detailed analysis regarding mechanisms that may explain how SSDI policies, from office closures to more stringent eligibility determinations, may contribute to changing disability caseloads by race and ethnicity. We propose to use information on the location of office closings and on geographic differences in the declines in allowances at each step, linked to data on Medicare beneficiaries eligible due to SSDI, to understand how changes in the allowance rates in the SSDI program may have a differential effect by race and ethnicity. We will also work to understand whether particular characteristics of beneficiaries and geographic characteristics contribute to racial and ethnic differences in access to SSDI. Our major activities will be:
● Augment analytic files and renew CMS DUA.
● Conduct data analyses.
● Draft manuscript and presentations.
● Finalize manuscript and public use code and files.