I'll Take A Guess

     The Vermont Legislative Joint Fiscal Office is asking why there is a higher percentage of Vermonters drawing Social Security disability benefits due to mental illness than the national average. I'll give them an answer they haven't considered. Vermont is in Social Security's Region I. That Region has long had higher approval rates than other Regions. Regions matter since Regional Office Quality Assurance reviews most favorable determinations (but few unfavorable determinations) made within the Region. Mental illness disability determinations are particularly sensitive to differences in adjudicative climate.

Tinkering With Work Incentives Won't Matter

    Here's another writer who thinks that people will fly off the disability rolls if we just tinker with work incentives. We should change it from a cliff to a ramp but I'm telling you that it will make little difference. We've had near continuous tinkering with work incentives since the 1960s -- yes, the 1960s -- to no effect. Additional tinkering won't matter much. There are two fallacies underlying all this tinkering -- the belief that it's not that hard to get on disability benefits and that people who go on disability benefits will eventually get better. Neither is even a little bit true.

Happy Halloween!

Yes, I know they're actually dressed for Dia de los Muertos but that's sorta the same thing.

Why So Much Homelessness?

     From The Oregonian:

Of the 4,000 people living on the streets in Multnomah County, more than half have serious mental illness and more than a third have physical disabilities.

You'd think many of these people could qualify for disability income help from the government.

The short answer is they probably could. 

The reality is the more disabled they are, the harder it is for them to pursue benefits.

This is where Mellani Calvin comes in. In April 2010, she founded the nonprofit ASSIST, which stands for "Assertive Supplemental Security Income Service Team." From a small office in Southwest Portland, the five-member staff works with indigent or homeless clients seeking to qualify for disability benefits. ...

MS Guidebook

     The National Multiple Sclerosis Society has issued a new edition of Applying for Social Security Disability Benefits: A Guidebook for People with MS and their Healthcare Providers. The 88 page guidebook includes a number of forms and checklists.

Sicker Because Poorer Or Poorer Because Sicker

     From Reuters Health:

People with fewer assets like real estate, savings, stocks and retirement accounts may be more likely to develop disabilities or die prematurely than wealthier individuals, a new study suggests. ... 

“Interestingly, the link between wealth and health outcomes was seen in both the U.S. and England, which are two countries with very different health and social safety net systems,” said study leader Dr. Lena Makaroun of the VA Puget Sound Health Care System and the University of Washington in Seattle. ... 

The similarities suggest that for low-wealth individuals, health care or financial benefits alone may not be enough to improve their health trajectory, she added. ... 

Disability was defined as any difficulty in performing activities of daily living, such as dressing, eating and bathing. ...

     I think there may be one important explanation that apparently wasn't considered by the study's authors. People become poorer because they're sicker. Sickness limits the ability to work. Even with relatively generous government benefits in England, the ability to accumulate wealth is closely tied to the ability to work. You can't put away much money if you're on the dole.

     By the way, don't think that government healthcare in England pays for everything. It doesn't pay for dental care, for instance. Brits are notorious for having bad teeth. Poor dental care is bad for your general health. Of course, there are plenty of Americans who lack dental care.

A 50% Tax Encourages People To Work?

     From a notice that the Social Security Administration is publishing in the Federal Register on Monday:

We are announcing a demonstration project for the Social Security disability program under title II of the Social Security Act (Act). Under this project, we will modify program rules applied to beneficiaries who work and receive title II disability benefits. We are required to conduct the Promoting Opportunity Demonstration (POD), in compliance with section 823 of the Bipartisan Budget Act (BBA) of 2015. 

In this project, we will test simplified work incentives and use a benefit offset based on earnings as an alternative to rules we currently apply to title II disability beneficiaries who work. Under the benefit offset, we will reduce title II disability benefits by $1 for every $2 that a beneficiary earns above a certain threshold. 

We will select beneficiaries and offer them the opportunity to volunteer for the project . When we make the selection, we will include beneficiaries who receive title II disability benefits only as well as beneficiaries who receive both title II disability benefits and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) based on disability or blindness under title XVI of the Act.

     This amounts to a 50% tax on earnings on top of the regular taxes the worker is already paying. This is supposed to encourage people to work?
     In any case, it won't matter what incentives they give; few of these disabled people have the capacity to do any significant amount of work. They're too sick. That's why their disability claims were approved. Getting approved is very tough. They're not going to get better. Almost all the people who had a realistic hope of getting better never got on benefits in the first place because of the one year duration requirement. If you haven't gotten better after a year, you're probably never going to get better.
     By the way, the abbreviation POD already has an established meaning at Social Security -- Period Of Disability. I wish they wouldn't try to use that for something else related to disability benefits. It's confusing.

How Much Does Motherhood Cost Women In Social Security Benefits?

     A new study by Matthew Rutledge, Alice Zulkarnain and Sara King reports that:

• The lifetime earnings of mothers with one child are 28 percent less than the earnings of childless women, all else equal, and each additional child lowers lifetime earnings by another 3 percent.
• When examining Social Security benefits, the motherhood penalty is smaller than the earnings penalty. But mothers with one child still receive 16 percent less in benefits than non-mothers, and each additional child reduces benefits by another 2 percent.
• The motherhood penalty is almost negligible among women receiving spousal benefits, but mothers who receive benefits on only their own earnings histories see significantly lower Social Security income.