Disability Benefit Take-Up and Local Labor Market Conditions

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Charles, Kerwin Kofi; Li, Yiming; Stephens, Melvin, Jr.
• 署名单位: University of Chicago; National Bureau of Economic Research; University of Michigan System; University of Michigan
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6535
• DOI: 10.1162/rest_a_00692
• 发表日期: 2018-07
• 页码: 416-423
• 关键词: insurance receipt; PARTICIPATION; transfers; PROGRAMS; decline; HEALTH

摘要

Exploiting county-level variation in oil-producing areas from shocks to world oil and gas prices, we study how local labor market conditions affect disability take-up. We extend well-known previous work using a similar research design by analyzing a different price shock; a larger, more representative set of labor markets; and a more recent period marked by skyrocketing disability payments. Our estimated elasticity for SSDI payments with respect to earnings of -0.29 is surprisingly similar to earlier findings. Our preferred SSI elasticity estimate of -0.16 is smaller than previous findings, but we show that SSI programmatic changes explain most of the difference.