Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Recent studies have examined maternal labor supply among women with children in poor health (Powers 2003, Corman et al. 2004) and the effects of children losing SSI payments on parental earnings (Deshpande 2016). However, the effects of a child’s disability onset on a household’s earnings and benefits are not well understood. For example, disability onset could lead to decreases in labor supply, possibly leading to increases in benefit receipt. Our study will shed light on this issue by addressing several questions. First, how does a child’s disability onset affect parental labor supply and earnings? What are the pathways from a child’s disability onset to new benefit receipt on behalf of the child? Is new disability onset first associated with drops in employment and earnings, followed by enrollment in SSI? Finally, how important are safety net programs such as SSI among families that have a child with a disability?