Social Security Bulletin Released

     The Social Security Administration has posted the most recent issue of the Social Security Bulletin, its scholarly publication, which is now in its 83rd year. Here are summaries of two articles from this issue of the Bulletin:

Mixed-Methods Study to Understand Public Use of Social Security's Online Platform by Lila Rabinovich and Francisco Perez-Arce

In this article, the authors use quantitative analysis of survey data and qualitative analysis of personal interviews to examine public awareness and use of online my Social Security accounts. The accounts are the Social Security Administration's platform for providing both general and personalized retirement-preparation information, including benefit estimators, along with other agency services. The authors explore internet literacy and demographic factors that may affect platform access and use. They also review the experiences and reactions reported by individual platform users.

The Alignment Between Self-Reported and Administrative Measures of Disability Program Application and Benefit Receipt in the Health and Retirement Studyby Jody Schimmel Hyde and Amal Harrati

This study examines the differences between self-reported data and administrative records on Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) application and benefit receipt using survey data from the Health and Retirement Study linked to the Social Security Administration's Form 831 records and Disability Analysis File. The authors find that aggregate survey reports of DI and SSI application and benefit receipt are lower than administrative records indicate and that individual-level misreporting is common, although both sources indicate similar incidence patterns.