Understanding the Increase in Disability Insurance Benefit Receipt in the United States
Journal of Economic Perspectives
vol. 29,
no. 2, Spring 2015
(pp. 123-50)
(Complimentary)
Abstract
The share of working-age Americans receiving disability benefits from the federal Disability Insurance (DI) program has increased significantly in recent decades, from 2.2 percent in the late 1970s to 3.6 percent in the years immediately preceding the 2007-2009 recession and 4.6 percent in 2013. With the federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund currently projected to be depleted in 2016, Congressional action of some sort is likely to occur within the next several years. It is therefore a good time to sort out the competing explanations for the increase in disability benefit receipt and to review some of the ideas that economists have put forth for reforming US disability programs.Citation
Liebman, Jeffrey B. 2015. "Understanding the Increase in Disability Insurance Benefit Receipt in the United States." Journal of Economic Perspectives, 29 (2): 123-50. DOI: 10.1257/jep.29.2.123Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D72 Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
- H55 Social Security and Public Pensions
- I13 Health Insurance, Public and Private
- J14 Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-labor Market Discrimination
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