Who Are the Marginal Beneficiaries, and How Much Do They Cost?
by Adele Kirk SSI and SSDI, the two work disability programs administered by the Social Security Administration (SSA), have been marked by concerns about target efficiency since their inception. Despite these concerns, entry criteria have been gradually relaxed over the years, and enrollment has grown tremendously. Some growth is attributable to demographic shifts, such as the aging of the population. But research has identified other important drivers of growth in the program, including economic incentives to apply for benefits and the relaxation of disability screening criteria. While administrative data can document some aspects of program growth, they provide few insights about how much heterogeneity might exist among beneficiaries in areas such as health status, residual work capacity, and costs to the system. This study will use a newly available data linkage initiative that links more than a decade of cross-sectional National Health Interview Surveys (NHIS) with retrospective an
