Panel:
Return to Work Following Disabling Injury and Illness: Worker Outcomes after Onset and Opportunities for Early Intervention
(Employment and Training Programs)
Thursday, November 3, 2016: 8:15 AM-9:45 AM
Jay (Washington Hilton)
*Names in bold indicate Presenter
Panel Organizers: Yonatan Ben-Shalom, Mathematica Policy Research
Panel Chairs: David Stapleton, Mathematica Policy Research
Discussants: Savi Swick, U.S. Department of Labor
Millions of American workers leave the labor force every year, at least temporarily, because of injury or illness. Without steady earnings, these workers and their families often end up in public programs such as Social Security Disability Insurance, Supplemental Security Income, Medicare, and Medicaid. The three papers included in this panel address the economic and policy implications of disabling injury and illness, both work-related and not, for workers, states, and the federal government, and present policy options for improving return-to-work outcomes.
The first paper in this panel, “The Impact of Economic Conditions on the Post-Injury Earnings and Employment of Permanently Disabled Workers,” provides the first estimates of how the Great Recession of 2008-2009 and the subsequent labor market recovery affected return to work and earnings losses for workers who suffer a permanently disabling workplace injury or illness, distinguishing the effects of economic conditions at the time of injury from changes over the business cycle in the composition of the injured worker population.
The second paper in this panel, “Identifying Where Cost Effective Interventions Can Reduce Transitions to Social Security Disability Insurance”, uses data on all California workers experiencing the onset of disabling conditions to identify those who are at high risk of entering the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program. The prospect of identifying workers who are likely to enter SSDI while still connected to their employers is intriguing, because numerous studies point to employer cooperation as key to keeping the worker in the labor force.
The third paper in this panel, “Early Intervention Stay-Work/Return-to-Work Options for States”, outlines the multiple places where states can intervene early to help workers keep their jobs after they experience injury or illness, presents the challenges involved in doing so, provides an overview of current promising initiatives, and describes specific opportunities for programs that can be designed, piloted, and evaluated fairly quickly.
