From Promoting Opportunity Demonstration: Final Evaluation Report, submitted to Social Security by Mathematica, a contractor:
... POD [Promoting Opportunity Demonstration] was a randomized controlled trial that included two treatments of a benefit offset. The two treatment groups had the same benefit offset but different termination rules. Treatment group 1 (T1) did not face termination, but treatment group 2 (T2) faced termination after 12 consecutive months of earnings above the full offset amount (the point at which benefits were reduced to zero). ...
The key features of POD implementation included benefits counseling services and support for processing earnings adjustments, led by the implementation team, and recruitment, led by the evaluation team. ...
Approximately 30 percent of treatment group members used the POD benefit offset, with a median monthly offset amount of $351. More than 80 percent of offset users experienced a work-related overpayment or underpayment, requiring a retroactive adjustment to reconcile the difference. ...
We did not observe any statistically significant differences in outcomes between the two treatment groups for overall offset usage or the impact estimates for the primary outcomes. ...
There were limited statistically significant differences in observed outcomes for the POD treatment and control groups. There were impacts on one primary outcome (annualized SGA) and several other employment-related measures. For example, we found positive impacts on job search and use of Vocational Rehabilitation services, which might contribute to longer-term outcomes. These impacts were notable because they indicate that impacts could still emerge beyond the two-year evaluation window. ...
POD had positive net benefits for beneficiaries and net costs to SSA. The net benefits for beneficiaries were driven by increases in earnings and fringe benefits, and SSDI benefit amounts. The new costs were driven primarily by the increased benefit payments and costs for counseling services. ...
Even with counseling, 80% of those using the offset ended up with an overpayment or underpayment! The experiment had only a limited effect on outcomes and ended up costing more money than it saved! Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?
Why can't policymakers admit the obvious? Social Security disability recipients are, for the most part, really, really sick. Everything under the sun has been tried to get them back to jobs. Nothing has worked. Nothing. The work incentive schemes just get more difficult and expensive to administer. They end up with messy results for the disability recipients who do attempt to return to work because the offsets are too complicated The schemes always end up costing more money than they save. There's no possible work incentives that will get any significant number of disability recipients back to work because they're too sick.
Crappy experiments like this are likely to go on forever because policymakers are blinded by their own preconceptions that it's easy to get on Social Security disability benefits and that a lot of disability recipients could work if given the right incentives. They don't bother to study the pathetic history of work incentive failure. They get sold on new schemes by contractors like Mathematica who end up getting paid even though their schemes never work. Even after this disaster this 406 page report ends with ideas for new schemes that could be tried!
Technically, Congress required this study.
ReplyDeleteI would love to see the percentage of return to work for beneficiaries under age 55 if all penalties for work were removed and they could earn as much as they wanted and still get their checks.
ReplyDeleteI have a feeling that would work.
Attorneys may have a biased viewpoint in that their clients have already been out of work quite a while. I've had disability awards that have returned to SGA before the waiting period ended.
ReplyDelete"I'm calling to take your kids claims."
"Okay. But can you call back when I have my lunch break? I'm working again."
@10:21, I bet what you would see is 50% of them would do some work, but their earnings would be less than $1000 a month. They can work, what they can't do is work enough to support themselves.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't call it a disaster. I think research is good as long as we learn from it. Of course, SSA isn't very good at learning anything. Look at the pilot on doing away with the reconsideration stage. If there was ever anything supporting that the agency wants to keep the process long and difficult to discourage as many claimants as possible, that is it.
ReplyDeleteI think more than 50% under the age of 55 can perform SGA.
ReplyDeleteIf they couldn’t earn more than $1000.00 per month we wouldn’t have so many overpayments as a result of people returning to work. SGA is $1350.00 per month so $1,000.00 wouldn’t cause an OP.
The biggest hurdle is that it’s so hard to get the benefits awarded in the first place, so the incentive to return to work and eventually lose them despite not getting better physically/mentally is what’s holding people back.
See it all the time. They get overpaid or the benefits get suspended and they stop work immediately.
I do not think SGA is a sustainable amount of money for most people. I have an under 50 who is being terminated for making $8.50 per month over SGA. How is that even something that should be adjudicated? Unbelievably stupid.
ReplyDeleteAlways found it amusing when someone complains about being over a limit by “a little.” Or missing something by a “a little.” Did you go to your professor in college and say “come on, I would have an A if it wasn’t for one question on the exam” Or call your your bank and try and convince them you shouldn’t have to pay a late charge because you were only a few days late making a payment. Not weeks late. Over is over. Sucks being over by a few dollars rather than hundreds but limits are limits, in SSA and everywhere else that has such rules.
DeleteI am amazed that supposedly "intelligent" people can't figure this out. Even a donkey understands it, though. More carrots, less stick. If you want to people to work, who have been judged disabled "by our rules," then you have to lower the RISK and increase the REWARD. For those who might be able to work marginally near the SGA line, they are are going to toe the line in order to not risk their benefits. Unless you really believe you are capable of performing and SUSTAINING a job well ABOVE SGA that comes with good health insurance, the risk is too high. Would you risk your SSDI AND Medicare for $100 a month? Say someone was getting $1200 for SSDI and making $1000 for 20-25 hours a week. Only a job making $4000 a month would be enticing enough to make you even consider it. The increase in taxes would have to be factored in. Plus, more commuting expenses, child care, etc. Then, is the job easy enough on your body that you are likely to sustain it? Then the "experts" can't understand why people aren't willing to risk SSDI for a $2500 a month job with no health care that they might not be able to sustain...
ReplyDeleteAgree with 2:04 "They get overpaid or the benefits get suspended and they stop work immediately."
ReplyDeleteI am constantly talking to people who admit to being able to work more than they are, but work part time/reduced hours to stay under the SGA limit and keep their benefits. There is a lot of misrepresentation that goes on. Some disability recipients are "really really sick," but a lot aren't. And a lot do improve when they take meds regularly. However, until the system is better managed, it'll continue.
@4:36
ReplyDeleteOver SGA is over SGA. That’s why they were piloting the reduction procedure rather than the suspension.
But apparently it doesn’t make a difference.
4:36 PM, Was the wage averaged properly? Was it sustained? For how long?
ReplyDeleteCutting off benefits fir $8.50 a month? That's $102 for a year... or, less than $2 a week. Or 10 cents per hour (at 20 hours a week) too much. At $8.50 an hour, that would be 1 hour too much per month. Absurd. Give a warning and pug on "probation." No carrots, just the STICK. And people like 2:04 and 5:09 "wonder" why people toe the line instead of screwing themselves?
ReplyDelete@6:58
ReplyDeleteYou are right that SSA has to follow the rules, and over is over. As a policy matter however, it is awful. To convince people on disability benefits to try to work, you have to instill confidence in them that they won't regret trying it. Many people with disabilities are on tight, fixed income budgets. If you hit them with an unexpected liability like an overpayment it can be financially disastrous. More importantly for the success of a work incentive program, overpayment by overpayment, you create bad press for the program in the disability community. If people with disabilities view participating in the program like crossing a land-mine strewn no man's land while blindfolded (an apt comparison considering the complexity of the rules), few will try it. Most proposals I have seen just shift the landmines around a bit.
I think what you are saying is, "more carrots, less stick."
DeleteWould be good if overpayment for going over SGA was only 1/2 of what went over the SGA amount. So the person over by $8 would only owe $4 per month. The worst part about SGA overpayments is it usually takes many months to years for the overpayment to be assessed. $4 a month isn't terrible but 2 years of full benefit is devastating.
ReplyDeleteYou can wish the program worked differently all you want but it doesn’t.
ReplyDeleteYou have to work within the framework you’re given.
If SGA is $1350/mo (after your TWP), then don’t go over it…even by a few dollars.
Believe me, plenty of us that work for SSA see the problems with the programs and we also want them to work better.
However, most of the claimants I deal with daily don’t take the time to read anything we send them and make much of an effort to understand the program rules. They aren’t all mental and if you think they’re all just poorly educated and can’t figure it out, we have a much bigger problem on our hands.
Inspector General Ennis’s Office of Communication sent out a survey a few days ago to all OIG employees. A couple of questions related to whether employees wanted more articles about people’s pets in the IG’s bi-weekly newsletter to employees. This is same Office of Communications that sends email each weekday to supervisors summarizing news articles about SSA and other topics related to the agency, but failed to include the 3 Washington Post articles in any of its daily summaries. At same time, employees are constantly told not to spend work time on free training to enhance investigative and audit skills because free training is not free since your salary costs for your time is a cost. However, spend work time writing article about your pets so Ennius can include it in her by-weekly news letter. Ennis has dogs if you are wondering. Speaking of the newsletter, a few months back, there was announcement of a new attorney being hired in OIG’s New Orleans office. We were so used to attorneys being hired, it was not really news. What was news was that OIG suddenly had a 1-person office in New Orleans. Investigations and Audit have no office there.
ReplyDeleteWhy would the SSA, OIG AIG for Audit, who herself has no SSA experience or knowledge, bring on a SES deputy in her office with no SSA experience or knowledge. The stats show the Audit Office is failing in productivity & audits of impact. Yet she brings on another inexperienced person with no SSA knowledge when morale and productivity is in the toilet.
ReplyDelete