Take a look at this
report from the
"Center for Studying Disability Policy" which recommends "work-support" programs as a way to reduce the burdens on Social Security's disability trust fund. (One word of warning, the Center's website caused my browser -- Firefox -- to freeze up. Could there be a metaphor here?) Three types of programs are recommended in the report:
- Earnings Support Insurance: New temporary program that would provide cash and employment supports funded by payroll taxes.
- Universal Short-Term Private Disability Insurance: Required short-term insurance provided by private insurers and funded through mandated employer and employee premiums.
- Experience Rating: A new formula used to determine the allocation of SSDI payroll taxes to employers, based on SSDI use by former employees.
I understand these ideas are receiving attention in Washington.
I put the name "Center for Studying Disability Policy" in quotations because it is not exactly what you might think. The "Center for Studying Disability Policy" appears to be a wholly owned subsidiary of
Mathematica Policy Research which was at one time a
major contractor with Social Security. What sort of contract did Mathematica have with Social Security? Oh, a contract to support disabled youth making the transition to employment, a contract which Social Security's
Office of Inspector General says cost Social Security over $44 million and which generated "little tangible benefit." I think that Mathematica wants to get back on that gravy train.
So, Mathematica is recommending another trip down the same path that proved unsuccessful in the past and people in Washington are listening. People have short memories. How many times has Social Security pored money down the rat hole of encouraging the disabled to return to work? Which of these efforts has demonstrated any viability whatsoever? These schemes are always promoted by Beltway Bandits whose only real interest is in getting contracts.
The problem remains what it has always been. If you require people to be half dead or fully crazy to get disability benefits, what makes you think that ANY program will show any significant success in returning them to work? If you want great success in returning people to work, make it vastly easier to get on Social Security disability benefits. Otherwise, you are just wasting money on research that is doomed to failure.
Policymakers need to drop their illusions about who gets Social Security disability benefits in this country. They are NOT, in the main:
- People who have suffered some traumatic injury that will get better with time
- People whose only impairment is some injury or disease which has put them in a wheelchair but which leaves them able-bodied otherwise.
They ARE, in the main, people who suffer from one or more of the following:
- Chronic, progressive disease, meaning they not only do not get better with time; they get worse
- Chronic, severe pain which is not going to get better over time
- Chronic, severe mental illness that is unlikely to get significantly better over time
If policymakers would understand who is actually on Social Security disability benefits, they would understand just how futile it would be to fall for Mathematica's scheme.