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Oct 6, 2023

Disability Insurance Income Saves Lives

     From Disability Insurance Income Saves Lives by Alexander Gelber, Timothy Moore, Zhuan Pei and Alexander Strand:

We show that higher payments from US Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) reduce mortality. Using administrative data on new DI beneficiaries, we exploit discontinuities in the benefit formula through a regression kink design. We estimate that $1,000 more in annual DI payments decreases the annual mortality rate of lower-income beneficiaries by approximately 0.18 to 0.35 percentage points, implying an elasticity of mortality with respect to DI income of around -0.6 to -1.0. We find no robust evidence of an effect of DI income on the mortality of higher-income beneficiaries. The mortality effects imply large welfare benefits of disability insurance.

3 comments:

  1. So, basically they're gonna lower payments for higher mortality after SSA reads this? Just sayin'... that SEEMS to be the way it works now.

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  2. They needed a study to conclude this?

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  3. "People who can eat live longer, government study finds"

    ReplyDelete