AEA Papers and Proceedings
ISSN 2574-0768 (Print) | ISSN 2574-0776 (Online)
Disability Insurance in the Great Recession: Ease of Access, Program Enrollment, and Local Hysteresis
AEA Papers and Proceedings
vol. 111,
May 2021
(pp. 486–90)
Abstract
We examine the interaction between Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) access and economic shocks during the Great Recession by exploiting exogenous variation in SSDI appeals processing time—a measure of hassle or access—between neighboring zip codes assigned to different hearing offices. During the Great Recession, longer processing times led to lower SSDI enrollment in places that experienced more severe labor market downturns. In the full sample, processing time has no clear effect on the pace of employment recovery. However, among severely shocked places with high baseline SSDI enrollment, those with longer processing times saw faster recovery in employment rates.Citation
Kearney, Melissa S., Brendan M. Price, and Riley Wilson. 2021. "Disability Insurance in the Great Recession: Ease of Access, Program Enrollment, and Local Hysteresis." AEA Papers and Proceedings, 111: 486–90. DOI: 10.1257/pandp.20211092Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- G01 Financial Crises
- H55 Social Security and Public Pensions
- J32 Nonwage Labor Costs and Benefits; Retirement Plans; Private Pensions
- R23 Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics: Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population; Neighborhood Characteristics