Summary
On this examine, we study the impact of the suspension of in-person providers at Social Safety Administration (SSA) discipline places of work in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic on functions and the traits of candidates to see if sure teams of beneficiaries have been disproportionately affected. We study how applicant traits differ by the mode of utility—in-person, telephone, or on-line—to grasp what teams of candidates have been almost definitely to make use of in-person providers previous to the suspension. We use a difference-in-differences empirical strategy that permits us to estimate the affect of the suspension of in-person providers on the quantity of functions and the demographic composition of candidates whereas controlling for different pandemic-related elements. Our evaluation knowledge consists of utility info from SSA’s Structured Information Repository, mixed with applicant work historical past info from the Digital Claims Evaluation sTool. We mixed the executive knowledge with location info of SSA discipline places of work and county info from the American Group Survey and the New York Occasions COVID-19 repository.
The paper discovered that:
- There have been systematic variations within the traits of candidates by mode of utility. In-person candidates have been older, much less prone to have accomplished highschool, and fewer prone to converse English in comparison with telephone or on-line candidates.
- The suspension brought on a 6-percent lower within the quantity of functions, implying that not everybody who needed to use in-person was capable of apply utilizing different modes. The impact was bigger for Supplemental Safety Revenue (SSI) functions in comparison with Social Safety Incapacity Insurance coverage (DI) functions.
- The suspension of in-person providers brought on some would-be in-person candidates to use by telephone, however it didn’t trigger a rise within the quantity of on-line functions.
- We didn’t discover proof that the suspension disproportionately affected teams of candidates outlined by academic attainment, age, or English-speaking standing.
- Our estimates indicate that in-person service suspensions clarify greater than 50 p.c of the decline in SSI and DI functions in the course of the pandemic.
The coverage implications of the findings are:
- Insurance policies that purpose to lift consciousness and use of on-line providers might considerably cut back utility limitations to eligible people; nevertheless, they could assist some forms of eligible people greater than others.
- Understanding the traits of candidates who use the totally different modes of utility might be helpful in serving to the federal government effectively allocate assets to help entry to the applying course of.
- Our outcomes point out that a greater understanding of how utility mode impacts the completeness and high quality of SSI or DI functions might in the end result in potential utility helps (equivalent to entry to an internet chat with an SSA consultant) for modes of utility that are usually related to comparatively decrease utility high quality.
