From What Factors Explain the Drop in Disability Insurance Rolls from 2015 to 2019? by Siyan Liu and Laura D. Quinby for the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College:
From What Factors Explain the Drop in Disability Insurance Rolls from 2015 to 2019? by Siyan Liu and Laura D. Quinby for the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College:
The rules to get approved became more stringent
ReplyDeleteSomething is deeply wrong with this graph or the definitions do not make sense. How can the "Final" allowance rate (All allowances/all applicants) be LOWER than the subset of "Initial" allowances (initial allowances/all applicants) between 2013 and 2019.
ReplyDeleteI looked at the source https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/statcomps/di_asr/2021/sect04.htmland
It is clear the authors incorrectly plotted on the same graph two concepts you could call "allowance rates" but which have very different denominators. The final allowance rate adds to the denominator of the inital allowance rate all the "technical denials". This is a mistake. The huge decline in final allowance rates between 1998/9 and 2004 is due to a huge increase in technical denials which in turn represents a change in SSA management practices, not a huge increase in lower allowance rates by initial, recon or hearing level decision-makers.
The overall allowance rate did decline by about 11 points between a high in 2001 of 62% to a low of 50.1 2017, but it is much less dramatic than the published chart implies with about half the decline between 1999-2004 and half between 2009-2015.
A note from the Office of the Actuary shows the correct "final allowance rate" series between 1988 and 2011 along with rationale for only a denominator based on the applicants who receive a decision from an actual adjudicator.
I agree with 11:19--how can the initial allowance rate be lower than the final allowance rate? That does not make any sense. Am I missing something?
ReplyDelete@12:02
ReplyDeletePretty sure it's just meant to compare initial awards versus final awards that were wrongfully denied initially. For example, a claim was initially denied, but awarded by the ALJ.
4:11pm
ReplyDeleteNo. It is not comparing initial vs hearing allowance rates. The final allowance rate is the percentage of all applicants in a given year who were eventually awarded benefits.
Initial allowance rate = (Initial allowances)/(all initial decisions)
Final allowance rate=(Initial allowances+ recon allowances+Hearing Allowances)/(all initial decisions)
The authors made the mistake of adding "technical denials" to the denominator of the "Final allowance rate" which has the effect of making the final rate much lower (technical denials are about 35% of all appplications). In the late 90's SSA dramatically changed its own practice when taking SSI applications, automatically generating a DI application so as not to miss any one possibly eligible.
Bottom line is that total allowance rate HAS fallen over the last decade because of large declines in the ALJ allowance rate since 2010, but the change was far more modest than the chart suggests.
In other words, the allowance rates did not "plummet."
ReplyDeleteIsnt this the time period where we started to see the Boomer wave of retirements of 10000/day?
ReplyDelete