Marijuana Legalization and Disability Claiming

We study the effect of recent legalization of recreational marijuana use (RMLs) in the United States on Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income claiming, proxied by new applications and new benedficiaries, over the period 2001 to 2019. We combine administrative caseload data from the Social Security Administration with state policy changes using two-way fixed effects regression. We find that RML adoption increases new disability application rates. However, there is no change in new beneficiaries post-RML. We provide suggestive evidence that the observed changes in applications post-RML are potentially driven by increases in marijuana misuse and selective migration