Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) are two federal assistance programs that together served nearly 13 million working-age people with disabilities in 2014. That same year, 8.2 percent of DI beneficiaries and 10.5 percent of SSI recipients exited their respective programs due to death, attainment of full retirement age, excess income, medical improvement, or other reason. However, little has been known about the many possible pathways that beneficiaries follow leading up to their program exits. We use administrative data from the Social Security Administration to examine the various milestones achieved and pathways followed by new Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) awardees and to study the characteristics of awardees who tended to follow each of these pathways. Our findings show that 80 percent of DI-first awardees and 53 percent of SSI-first awardees either achieved none of the milestones we track in the 10 years after their initial award or their only milestone was death or attainment of full retirement age. During this same period, 6 percent of DI-first awardees subsequently received SSI, and nearly 25 percent of SSI-first awardees subsequently received DI. Both DI-first and SSI-first awardees in top 10 paths with work-related milestones are more likely to be younger than age 45; DI-first awardees in these paths were also more likely to have more than a high school education.