Abstract
Abstract Federal/state vocational rehabilitation (VR) agencies offer services to individuals with disabilities that may help them remain in the labor force and avoid entering Social Security Administration (SSA) disability programs. We assess how the availability of VR services within an agency at the time an individual applies to receive VR services is related to subsequent application and receipt of SSA disability benefits. We find that individuals have a higher likelihood of subsequently applying for and receiving disability benefits when they apply in months that the VR agency serves a lower percentage of applicants or has a longer average wait for services. JEL codes H55, H75, J29
Highlights
Federal/state vocational rehabilitation (VR) agencies provide rehabilitation and employment-related services to individuals with significant disabilities with vocational goals
3.2 Subpopulation selection Because our interest is in understanding the association between VR service accessibility and subsequent disability benefit application and award, we limited our sample to individuals who applied to VR agencies between 2002 and 2005 who had no record of previously applying for VR services in the 36 months preceding the first application in the sample period
4.1 Bivariate relationships between VR service availability measures and Security Administration (SSA) outcome measures As we would expect if the primary factor determining the direction of the bivariate relationships is the hypothesized effect of VR access on SSA outcomes, in agencies never in order of selection (OOS) we find a negative relationship between agency-month values of IPEat and each of the SSA outcomes
Summary
Federal/state vocational rehabilitation (VR) agencies provide rehabilitation and employment-related services to individuals with significant disabilities with vocational goals. The fact that some agencies operated in OOS status in at least some years of the sample period complicates the interpretation of our VR access measures, perhaps especially for those most likely to apply for SSA benefits It is possible, for instance, that those non-beneficiary applicants most likely to qualify for SSA benefits are among those who move to the front of the line in agencies that are in OOS status. The strength of the economy and the availability and quality of non-VR services might affect the number of non-beneficiary applicants in each month, the state resources available to serve those applicants, and the opportunities for applicants to (re)enter the labor force rather than seek SSA benefits These effects all induce relationships between the measures of service access and SSA outcomes that are likely to be confounded with the effect of exogenous variation in access on SSA outcomes. Able to partially net out the effects of some of the other factors that might explain these relationships, as described
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