Ticket to Work Panel Activities

Social Security's Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Advisory Panel has scheduled a meeting for February 8 and 9 in Atlanta. Martin Gerry is scheduled to speak, so he must definitely still be at Social Security, although his future may be in a bit of doubt after yesterday's confirmation hearing testimony by Mike Astrue who strongly downplayed the Disability Service Improvement plan that has been Gerry's baby for the past five years.

The Panel has posted minutes of all of its meetings and working papers. One working paper entitled "Ability or Inability to Work: Challenges in Moving Towards a More Work-Focused Disability Definition for Social Security Administration (SSA) Disability Programs" may be worth quoting at some length, since it displays the state of knowledge and expectations at the panel and its staff:

The disability concepts from other programs tend to employ a more dynamic definition that allows for changes in disability status over time and different environments. Unlike the SSI and DI programs that assess permanent disability status at the time of application (emphasis added), other programs tend to use changing disability concepts during initial and on-going assessments for program eligibility. In general, these other systems have a more continuous measure of disability that first focuses on an applicant’s residual capacity at initial assessment and then moves to different levels of severity after a participant has shown a continuing inability to work during on-going assessments. Consequently, the disability criteria used at initial assessment [in disability programs other than Social Security] are often different from those used during ongoing disability reassessments. Another major difference is that while other systems have a permanent disability measure, they often employ different levels of this definition, including partial and full disability benefits, depending on a program participant’s impairment severity and/or inability to work. Finally, the definition of work itself and the role of employers also provide insights on possible modifications to the disability definition for the SSI and DI programs, which focuses on substantial gainful activity (SGA), rather than employment in a specific occupation. ...

The alternative is to break away from the current all-or-nothing benefit structure of the SSI and DI programs and move towards a continuum of disability that is similar to other programs. Several options within this continuum will influence the size of the population effected, as well as the costs of providing services.