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The Supplemental Security Income Program and welfare reform

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  • Lucie Schmidt

Abstract

Over the past 20 years, the Supplemental Security Income Program (SSI), which provides federally funded income support for disabled individuals, has become one of the most important means-tested cash aid programs in the United States. However, little research has examined the determinants of growth in SSI caseloads across states and over time. In this paper I use state panel data, exploiting variation both across states and over time, to determine what factors determine SSI disabled caseloads. I examine the relative importance of a number of factors, including economic conditions, health conditions, relative program generosity, and state fiscal situations. I then examine the effect of welfare reform as well as the effect of variation across states in welfare policies. Given previous research that provides evidence of interactions between the SSI program and other welfare programs that provide income support to single-mother families, I also examine how the effects of the factors listed above have changed since the passage of major welfare reform in 1996. Results suggest that both economic conditions and welfare reform have significant effects on SSI participation and that the SSI program has become more responsive to business cycles since welfare reform.

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  • Lucie Schmidt, 2012. "The Supplemental Security Income Program and welfare reform," Public Policy Discussion Paper 12-3, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedbpp:12-3
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. John Bound & Richard V Burkhauser & Austin Nichols, 2003. "Tracking The Household Income Of Ssdi And Ssi Applicants," Research in Labor Economics, in: Worker Well-Being and Public Policy, pages 113-158, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    2. Faggio, Giulia & Nickell, Stephen, 2005. "Inactivity among prime age men in the UK," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 19912, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
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    Cited by:

    1. Burns, Marguerite & Dague, Laura, 2017. "The effect of expanding Medicaid eligibility on Supplemental Security Income program participation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 20-34.
    2. Zachary Parolin & Christiaan Luigjes, 2018. "Incentive to Retrench? Institutional Moral Hazard among Federal & State Social Assistance Programs after Welfare Reform," Working Papers 1802, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    3. Goda, Gopi Shah & Jackson, Emilie & Nicholas, Lauren Hersch & Stith, Sarah See, 2023. "Older workers’ employment and Social Security spillovers through the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(4), pages 524-549, October.
    4. Coleman-Jensen, Alisha & Nord, Mark, 2013. "Food Insecurity Among Households With Working-Age Adults With Disabilities," Economic Research Report 142955, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    5. Mark Duggan & Melissa S. Kearney & Stephanie Rennane, 2015. "The Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Program," NBER Working Papers 21209, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Mark Duggan & Melissa S. Kearney & Stephanie Rennane, 2015. "The Supplemental Security Income Program," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, Volume 2, pages 1-58, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

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