Communicating Program Eligibility: A Supplemental Security Income Field Experiment

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Hemmeter, Jeffrey; Phillips, John; Safran, Elana; Wilson, Nicholas
• 署名单位: National Institutes of Health (NIH) - USA; Reed College - Portland
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-ECONOMIC POLICY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7731
• DOI: 10.1257/pol.20210560
• 发表日期: 2025
• 页码: 446-470
• 关键词: take-up; PARTICIPATION; ssi

摘要

We conducted a direct mail field experiment with 4,016,461 individuals to test several key hypotheses about why take-up of Supplemental Security Income among individuals age 65 and above is so low. Communicating likely eligibility in a basic letter generated substantial increases in take-up in relative terms. Adding behaviorally informed statements increased the effectiveness of these communications. Yet, the application rate in our study sample during the full 24-month follow-up period remained no greater than 7 percent. Our results reveal a modest trade-off between increasing applications and the conditional likelihood of award, as well as the award amount. (JEL C93, D12, D83, H55, I38, J14)