Occupations of SSI Recipients Who Work

Summary

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Although the Social Security Administration actively encourages Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients to work, relatively little is known about how the occupations of those who do work compare with occupations of the nonrecipient population. This article uses the 2007 American Community Survey to estimate dissimilarity indices, which are used to compare the predicted and actual occupational distributions of working SSI recipients with the occupational distributions of the nonrecipient populations with and without disabilities. Although the actual occupational distributions are quite different between these groups, much of the difference can be explained by demographic characteristics, human capital, and disability type.

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Occupations of SSI Recipients Who Work

Occupations of SSI Recipients Who Work

Occupations of SSI Recipients Who Work

by Jeffrey Hemmeter

Jeffrey Hemmeter is an economist in the Office of Program Development and Research within the Office of Retirement and Disability Policy, Social Security Administration.

Acknowledgments: The author would like to thank Richard Balkus, Susan Grad, John Kearney, Chris Silanskis, John Hennessey, L. Scott Muller, Paul O'Leary, and Jim Sears for their helpful comments and suggestions.

Introduction Selected Abbreviations ACS American Community Survey DI Disability Insurance HHI Herfindahl-Hirschman Index IIA independence or irrelevant alternatives NBS National Beneficiary Survey non-LFP non–labor force participation NSCF National Survey of SSI Children and Families OASDI Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance RR Railroad Retirement SIPP Survey of Income and Program Participation SOC Standard Occupational Classification SSA Social Security Administration SSI Supplemental Security Income

The Social Security Administration's (SSA's) involvement in back-to-work programs, vocational rehabilitation programs, and programs generally designed to help recipients become economically self-sufficient would benefit from an understanding of the types of jobs available to Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients. With the exception of a few back-to-work studies and work incentive demonstrations, relatively little is known about the occupations of SSI recipients relative to non-SSI recipients. This article fills a gap in knowledge about the types of jobs recipients have and how this differs from the jobs of the nondisabled and nonrecipient populations.

According to SSA (2008a), 5.7 percent (or 357,344) of the working-age (18–64) SSI population worked in December 2007. These individuals tend to have low wages; average earnings from wages were $597 in December. Knowledge of how the jobs these recipients hold differ from those of nonrecipients could help identify where vocational programs and placement efforts should best be focused and where outreach may be necessary to ensure employment opportunities for recipients. SSA is interested in assisting these individuals in becoming productive members of the economy and becoming self-sufficient. If individuals leave the SSI rolls but are trapped in marginal occupations (that is, occupations with low pay and insufficient health insurance), they may not only return to the program in the future, but may be in worse health, requiring greater expenditures from related programs (for example, Medicaid) than would have been required had they remained in the SSI program.

This article addresses three important questions regarding the occupations of the disabled. First, how do the occupations of people with disabilities (particularly SSI recipients) compare with the occupations of people without disabilities? Second, what occupations would the people with disabilities (particularly SSI recipients) have if they did not have a disability? And third, what occupations can we expect SSI recipients who are not working to have? This study uses the large sample size of the 2007 American Community Survey (ACS) to estimate the occupational distributions of the SSI recipient population and nonrecipient populations with and without disabilities. These distributions are compared with the actual and predicted occupational distributions of these populations.

The next section describes the SSI program and the work incentives for recipients, followed by reports of what is known about the occupations and employment of individuals with disabilities. The data is then detailed, and a description of the methodology is given. What follows are the actual occupational distributions of employed individuals and the predicted occupations of nonworking SSI recipients. A discussion of the policy relevance of the results follow, and the last section concludes the article.

The Appendix tables provide detailed information about the data and results: Table A-1 lists the occupation categories used in this study; Table A-2 presents summary statistics; and Table A-3 shows the multinomial logit results.

SSI Program

The SSI program is a means-tested transfer program that provides income support for individuals who are blind, disabled, or aged. A working-age adult (18–64) is determined to be disabled if he or she has "a medically determinable physical or mental impairment that is expected to last (or has lasted) at least 12 continuous months or to result in death and … prevents him or her from doing any substan...

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