August 17, 2021

Disability Discrimination and Aging Workers

A unique situation faces older workers with a disability: apply for federal disability insurance now or try to hold on and keep working to retirement age.

Of course, people who leave the labor force and apply for disability are taking a risk: they might be denied the benefits. But another possible factor in how these situations play out are state anti-discrimination laws to protect people with disabilities, including older workers, from employment discrimination. If these laws can reduce discrimination, could they increase employment and eliminate the need for some older workers to apply for disability?

A new study suggests that state anti-discrimination laws have prevented some disability applications – if the laws are broad enough to provide better protection to workers with disabilities.

The state laws deemed to be broader set a lower burden for proving that the individual has a disability than the standard in the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Under the ADA, individuals must prove that their condition “substantially” impacts their ability to function. Under this high burden of proof, many individuals with disabilities were not considered disabled under the ADA and did not receive the federal legal protections from discrimination.

The researchers analyzed whether the broader state laws limited the growth in disability applications between 1992 and 2013 by making it easier for workers at or near retirement age to remain employed.

Disability applications increased during that period for a range of reasons, from the Great Recession to a long-term deterioration in older workers’ health. But the basis for this new study was an increase in disability applications tied to a 1983 reform to Social Security. The reform reduced retirement benefits by raising the program’s full retirement age. Disability checks, which were not reduced, became more attractive to older workers relative to their retirement benefits.

But the researchers found that disability applications did not increase as much – and sometimes not at all – in the states with the broadest disability discrimination laws. The laws were especially effective in reducing applications by people getting close to retirement age. …Learn More

July 6, 2021

Hard for People on SSDI to Resume Work

The federal government runs numerous small-scale experiments across the country to explore ways to help people on Social Security disability ease back into work to reduce the benefits being paid.

In a recent webinar, researchers discussed the extreme challenges of designing programs that are effective, given the inherent disadvantages – from the disabling condition itself and discrimination to having less education – that people with disabilities face in the job market.

After close examination of several programs, the researchers found that the primary goals of most demonstration programs are very difficult to achieve: reducing disability benefits or increasing the earnings of people on disability who have sporadic or part-time work. But they also suggested that the programs would be deemed more successful if policymakers would broaden the goals to include the improved well-being of people with disabilities.

To increase their employment, Kilolo Kijakazi, deputy commissioner of retirement and disability policy at the U.S. Social Security Administration, said it’s critical to first address inequities in the job market.

Research shows that many people on disability express an interest in working but face multiple barriers. Employers aren’t always willing to make the workplace accommodations needed to hire them. People on disability also tend to be older than most workers and may face age discrimination. Others have been discouraged by past work experiences, and finding transportation to and from a job is often a challenge.

Although a minority of all Americans with disabilities are working, the 2020 unemployment rate among people with a disability who are either working or looking for a job was 12.6 percent. However, unemployment among Black Americans with disabilities was 16.3 percent. The rates were also very high for Asian-Americans and Latinos with disabilities –  15.7% and 16.8 percent, respectively.

“We need to develop policies and programs that address these inequities,” Kijakazi said.

Robert Moffitt at Johns Hopkins University analyzed several back-to-work programs, including the use of counselors and financial incentives. He found that the programs are extremely difficult to implement well and that participation is fairly low.

Although they do help some individuals, he concluded, “Most of the efforts to increase employment, earnings and labor force engagement of [disability] beneficiaries have been disappointing.” …Learn More

May 18, 2021

Nearly Half on Disability Want to Work

An unfortunate misperception about people on federal disability is that they’re not interested in working. In fact, nearly half of them want to work or expect to go back to work, and that share has been rising.

But getting or keeping a job has proved difficult, and the employment rate is very low for people who get Social Security disability benefits – or cash assistance from a companion program, Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Yet the vast majority of beneficiaries have past work experience that should help them in the job market.

Researchers at Mathematica mined a survey of people on disability for clues about how to help them find a job or promotion or learn a new skill.

Many of these work-oriented individuals are under extreme financial pressures and are also younger and healthier, despite their disabilities, than the people on disability who didn’t express a desire to work.

Yet only a third of the 2.6 million beneficiaries in the new study who say they want to work are either working now, were recently employed, or are looking for a job.

So, if they are willing to work and feel able to work, why are so few of them in the labor force?

The researchers landed on two big reasons. First, the work-oriented individuals, despite their desire to work, said they can’t find a job. This is a common experience because employers are either reluctant to hire people with disabilities or the available jobs don’t accommodate them. Others are hesitant to try the job market again because they feel discouraged by past employment experiences.

Second, the majority of work-oriented beneficiaries are unaware of federal programs designed to support a return to work or connect them with employers. …Learn More

December 10, 2020

Affordable Care Act Indirectly Affects SSI

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires that insurance companies offer coverage to young adults with disabilities – like all young people – through their parents’ employer coverage until age 26.

So, up to this point, many adults with disabilities now have a viable way to get health services, independent of any government assistance. But at 26, that changes.

A Mathematica study finds that’s when some start applying to the federal Supplemental Security Income Program (SSI) – probably partly to gain access to Medicaid health coverage. Health insurance is critically important to people with disabilities, who often need expensive, specialized medical services. SSI’s purpose is to provide monthly cash assistance for living expenses if they lack financial resources and don’t have the work history required for federal disability insurance. SSI recipients also qualify automatically for Medicaid in a majority of states.

The researchers examined the trends in applications to SSI by people in their 20s before and after the Affordable Care Act’s 2010 passage. They found that the annual application rates among people right around their 26th birthdays have recently been 3.4 percent higher than what would be expected based on the steady pattern of overall age trends. This jump in applications at age 26 was not evident before the ACA – when people tended to lose parental insurance earlier in their 20s.

The number of SSI applications that were approved was also somewhat higher, according to the study, which was funded by the U.S. Social Security Administration.

The risk to young adults who go on SSI, the researchers said, is that they might develop a long-term dependence on the program’s cash assistance and Medicaid. And this, in turn, could discourage people with less severe disabilities from trying to work at a critical point in their lives, because SSI strictly limits how much money its recipients can earn. …Learn More

October 29, 2020

Disability Accommodations Help Workers

This big number may surprise you: one out of every four adults feels they need some type of accommodation by an employer for a medical condition or disability.

This finding comes from a study in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management that established a very inclusive standard for determining the need for employer accommodations. The researchers concluded, after following individuals 18 and older in their study for four years, that their employment rate was higher when they received support.

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 requires employers to provide workers and job applicants with a “reasonable accommodation.” But disabling conditions aren’t always visible, and many people never ask employers for assistance. In addition, some employers – particularly small firms – may see accommodations as too costly.

In their 2014 supplement to a periodic RAND survey, the researchers found that 23 percent of workers and unemployed individuals said “yes” to a broad question designed to get a more accurate estimate of need than standard surveys: Does, or would, a special accommodation for your health “make it easier for you to work?”

This group was made up of workers who were already receiving an accommodation, as well as employed and unemployed individuals who felt they could use such support.

Workplace accommodations range from small things like buying a standing desk for an office worker with acute sciatica to reassigning a warehouse worker to a less physical task after he develops back problems. About half of the people who said an accommodation would help them received one – and the benefits were clear.

Between 2015 and 2018, their employment rate held steady at around 85 percent. But the rate for the people who weren’t being accommodated fell sharply, from 92 percent to 72 percent, according to the study funded by the Social Security Administration. …Learn More

August 11, 2020

Same Arthritis. But Some Feel More Pain

The X-rays look very similar for two 60-year-old women with arthritic knees.

But the less-educated woman has more severe pain than the person who graduated college.

A new study of men and women finds that the degree of knee-joint deterioration visible in an X-ray isn’t the primary reason one person experiences more knee pain than someone else. Instead, the overwhelming reason is knee strain caused by obesity and the toll taken by physically demanding jobs – both of which are more common among less-educated workers.

The researchers focused on knee arthritis, because musculoskeletal pain is one of the leading causes of Social Security benefit payments to people who develop a disability and can no longer work.

Understanding what’s behind the pain differences is important, because the need for workers in certain jobs requiring physical strength – home health aides, janitors, and construction workers are examples – is expected to increase in the future.

Given this growing demand and predictions of a continued rise in obesity, the researchers conclude that “pain is expected to contribute to an increase” over time in the percentage of the population who will be impaired by their pain.

The people in the study fell into three educational groups: a high school degree or less; some college; or a four-year college degree. The researchers also had information about their occupations, as well as several data sources that gauge the severity of their knee pain, including the ability to do things like walking a quarter of a mile.

Knee arthritis worsens with age. However, a surge in reports of severe knee pain came about a decade earlier for people with no more than a high school degree than the surge for college graduates. …Learn More

August 6, 2020

Public-Sector Disability is Fairly Generous

About one in four state and local government employees – some 6.5 million people – do not participate in the Social Security system. They get their disability insurance, as well as their pensions, from their employers.

Whether the coverage is more or less generous than Social Security disability depends on the individual worker’s circumstance and how the state or local employer calculates benefits. But a new study concludes that public-sector workers who have a disability generally receive benefits that are at least as generous as the federal benefits.

To compare them, researchers at the Center for Retirement Research had to construct a database with each state’s and locality’s eligibility requirements and benefit payments. The sample consisted of 67 different disability programs, which cover a majority of the U.S. workers who don’t pay into Social Security.

The main thing Social Security and the public-sector have in common is eligibility – a 35-year-old must have five years of employment to receive federal disability and four to six years under most public-sector programs. One way they differ is that most state and local governments have a more liberal definition of what qualifies as a disability. Social Security pays benefits to a worker who can no longer do any job. Public-sector benefits go to a worker who can’t continue doing his current job.

The disability benefits are also calculated differently. Social Security’s progressive formula is the most generous to low-wage workers, because it replaces a higher percentage of their past earnings. But each state and local government uses the same formula for all of its workers, regardless of their earnings, and the formula gives more credit to employees who have been with their employer the longest.

What does all this add up to? The older public-sector workers, who are most at risk of developing a disability, receive relatively generous protection under the state and local programs, because the eligibility requirements are less strict than Social Security’s and because the benefits for most long-tenured employees replace a higher percentage of their earnings.

Older people who moved into the public sector late in their careers are in a different situation. …Learn More