Social Security funds research aimed at encouraging disability benefits recipients return to work. The Journal of Rehabilitation has published what appears to be an entire issue showing the results of some of this Social Security funded research. Here are the titles:
- Who’s at risk of entering Social Security Disability Insurance? A comparison of application and allowance rates for groups of at-risk individuals
- Phase I development of the SGA Model: Use of administrative data and expert opinion to identify key components of the SGA Model
- Phase II of the SGA Project: Development of the coordinated team approach intervention
- Implementation and impacts of the Substantial Gainful Activity Project demonstration in Minnesota
- Launching and supporting the SGA Project in Kentucky and Minnesota: Experiences and perspectives of the Senior Technical Assistance Team
- Implementation and impacts of the Substantial Gainful Activity Project demonstration in Kentucky
- Vocational rehabilitation on the road to Social Security Disability
- “It makes me feel part of the society”: Return-to-work decisions of SSDI beneficiaries
You can read abstracts of each of these online. However, if you want to read the whole thing though, it's going to cost you 27.50 Euros or about $32.61. I'm not sure if that is per article or whether it gets you the whole issue because I didn't payup.
Is it appropriate for research funded by the federal government to be behind a pay wall?
6 comments:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/scientific-research-shouldnt-sit-behind-a-paywall/
Long standing issue/problem.
Not if they want you to read it! The "purpose" of this "study" appears to be the justification of the existence of VR. Achieving SGA is such a low level to achieve... Yet only 8% of the participants had achieved that level. Only 25% had "closed" in a "competitive" job. 42% quit the program before being hired in a "competitive" job. How many were ultimately able to sustain SGA? Study doesn't say. Shouldn't that be the entire focus? Being hired was never the issue, for me. It was actually ability to perform and SUSTAIN that performance. After I was denied by the ALJ in my first case, I took the "jobs" list to the local VR... One of the jobs hadn't had significant employment in 40 years. Another, they couldn't figure out what it was supposed to be. The number the VE gave and the title didn't match each other or any other job they could identify! The third had only limited, part-time jobs that had light duty responsibilities. All the REAL sedentary jobs they had required far more use of the hands than I have. I might have been able to do some of them for short periods of time. Certainly not sustain full employment.
If SSA REALLY wanted more people to try to return to work, they would greatly reduce the risk WHILE increasing the benefit of trying. A donkey can understand this, why can't beaurocrats and Congress. More carrots, less stick. More carrots, less stick. But, then the real issue is the premise: lots of people on SSI/SSDI can actually work.
It might not be reasonable but it is common. Many journals, especially but not only those published for-profit, charge "page charges" just to publish a paper, and then charge more if the authors want the paper to be "open access," which means available without charge to anyone (otherwise, only subscribers have access, although lots of universities buy subscriptions giving access to everyone there). Grant proposals to the National Science Foundation often include in their requested budgets money to pay publication charges, but this does not have to include paying for open access. I think the National Institutes of Health requires research they fund to be made available free. Some authors these days, after they submit a paper, put a copy of the submitted version online, in archives such as on one of the arXiv.
From the people who get treasury checks from SSA work. smh
Who do you think their "audience" is? They are not trying to persuade the public, they are trying to convince the government and perhaps Congress to fund VRs in order to save money. The study's focus was to get people off SSDI/SSI. Sustainability was clearly not the focus.
Ask the OIG to release the study to the public. Government waste.
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