This website uses cookies.

By clicking the "Accept" button or continuing to browse our site, you agree to first-party and session-only cookies being stored on your device to enhance site navigation and analyze site performance and traffic. For more information on our use of cookies, please see our Privacy Policy.

  1. Home
  2. Journals
  3. Journal of Economic Perspectives
  4. Winter 2002
  5. Policy Watch: U.S. Disability Policy in a Changing Environment

Journal of Economic Perspectives

ISSN 0895-3309 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7965 (Online)

Policy Watch: U.S. Disability Policy in a Changing Environment

  • Richard V. Burkhauser
  • Mary C. Daly
Journal of Economic Perspectives
vol. 16, no. 1, Winter 2002
(pp. 213–224)
Download Full Text PDF
(Complimentary)

Abstract

In this paper we provide a context for evaluating the goals and effectiveness of current disability policy. We review the Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income programs and examine trends in disability benefit receipt and employment among working-age people with disabilities. We discuss the difficulties in crafting efficient and equitable programs for this difficult to target, heterogeneous population. We conclude that changes in policy rather than in underlying health are most likely behind the increases in disability benefit receipt and the declines in employment of working-age people with disabilities over the 1990s business cycle.

Citation

Burkhauser, Richard, V., and Mary C. Daly. 2002. "Policy Watch: U.S. Disability Policy in a Changing Environment." Journal of Economic Perspectives 16 (1): 213–224. DOI: 10.1257/0895330027067

JEL Classification

  • I12 Health Production
  • J28 Safety; Job Satisfaction; Related Public Policy
  • H53 National Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs
  • I38 Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty: Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs