Between the early 1980s and 2002, both the prevalence of obesity and the number of beneficiaries of the Social Security Disability Insurance program doubled. We test whether these trends are related; specifically, we test whether obesity causes disability and movement onto the disability rolls. We...

Using linked 2009 Current Population Survey (CPS)-Annual Social and Economic Supplement/Social Security Administration records data and a definition of disability based on the six-question disability sequence (6QS) in the CPS-Basic Monthly Survey, we perform a face validity test that shows that...

This paper compares a variety of measures of fatness (e.g. BMI, waist circumference, waist-to-hip ratio, percent body fat) in terms of their ability to predict application for Social Security Disability Insurance (DI). This is possible through a recent linkage of the National Health and...

The rate of application for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits, as well as the number of beneficiaries has been increasing for the past several decades, threatening the solvency of the SSDI program. One possible remedy is to promote continued employment amongst those...

Theoretical models argue that poor health will contribute to early exit from the labor market and the decision to take early Social Security retirement benefits (Old-Age or OA benefits). However, most empirical estimates of the causal importance of health on the decision to take early OA...

Using kernel density estimation we find that over their 1990s business cycles the entire distribution of after-tax (disposable) income moved to the right in the United States and Great Britain while inequality declined. In contrast, Germany and Japan experienced less growth, a rise in inequality...

Using a single period measure to capture the population with disabilities in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics we observe the same dramatic decline in the relative employment rate of working age people with disabilities in the 1990s that is found in the Current Population Survey. We find that...

Government policies attempt to mitigate the economic risks to households of major life transitions. This paper focuses on two such transitions that social security systems typically insure against¿long term exits from the labor market (retirement, disability, unemployment insurance) and the...

Work in the marketplace is the primary source of income for most households in modern industrialized societies. A permanent or even a long-term exit from work by a household's principal earner is therefore a potentially risky economic event. Here we show that social security income (i.e., income...

Using panel data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation linked to Social Security Administration disability determination records we trace the pattern of household income and the sources of that income from 38 months prior to 39 months following application for Social Security...