IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/5250.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Factors Determining Participation of the Elderly in SSI

Author

Listed:
  • Kathleen McGarry

Abstract

The same low participation rates which plague many welfare programs have been observed among the elderly eligible for Supplemental Security Income (SSI). A number of hypotheses have been offered to explain the low enrollment, but none has attracted universal acceptance. In this paper I use the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to examine the participation of the elderly in SSI. Because of the high quality of the data, I am able to determine eligibility more accurately than in most previous studies. In this sample, only 56 percent of those whom I determine to be eligible for SSI are presently receiving benefits. I model the decision to participate as a probit equation, but modify the likelihood function to account for measurement error in the expected benefit. The results indicate that participation is primarily determined by the financial situation of the eligible individuals. Although all those eligible for SSI are poor, those with little in the way of other resources are significantly more likely to participate. This finding differs from widespread beliefs that eligible individuals are discouraged by the difficulty of the application process, or that many are uninformed about the program.

Suggested Citation

  • Kathleen McGarry, 1995. "Factors Determining Participation of the Elderly in SSI," NBER Working Papers 5250, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:5250
    Note: AG
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w5250.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David A. Wise, 1989. "The Economics of Aging," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number wise89-1.
    2. Michael D. Hurd & David A. Wise, 1989. "The Wealth and Poverty of Widows: Assets Before and After the Husband's Death," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of Aging, pages 177-200, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Moffitt, Robert, 1983. "An Economic Model of Welfare Stigma," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(5), pages 1023-1035, December.
    4. Moffitt, Robert & Wolfe, Barbara L, 1992. "The Effect of the Medicaid Program on Welfare Participation and Labor Supply," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 74(4), pages 615-626, November.
    5. Yatchew, Adonis & Griliches, Zvi, 1985. "Specification Error in Probit Models," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(1), pages 134-139, February.
    6. Fraker, Thomas & Moffitt, Robert, 1988. "The effect of food stamps on labor supply : A bivariate selection model," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 25-56, February.
    7. Newey, Whitney K., 1984. "A method of moments interpretation of sequential estimators," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 14(2-3), pages 201-206.
    8. Jennifer L. Warlick, 1982. "Participation of the Aged in SSI," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 17(2), pages 236-260.
    9. Strauss, Robert P., 1977. "Information and participation in a public transfer program," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 385-396, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wei-Yin Hu, 1996. "Elderly Immigrants on Welfare," UCLA Economics Working Papers 750, UCLA Department of Economics.
    2. Yelowitz, Aaron S, 2000. "Using the Medicare Buy-In Program to Estimate the Effect of Medicaid on SSI Participation," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 38(3), pages 419-441, July.
    3. Hauge, Janice A. & Jamison, Mark A. & Todd Jewell, R., 2008. "Discounting telephone service: An examination of participation in the Lifeline Assistance Program using panel data," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 135-149, June.
    4. Janice A. Hauge & Mark A. Jamison & R. Todd Jewell, 2007. "Participation in Social Programs by Consumers and Companies," Public Finance Review, , vol. 35(5), pages 606-625, September.
    5. Janice Hauge & Mark Jamison, 2010. "Effects of using specific versus general data in social program research," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(13), pages 1627-1639.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Keane, Michael & Moffitt, Robert, 1998. "A Structural Model of Multiple Welfare Program Participation and Labor Supply," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(3), pages 553-589, August.
    2. H. Hoynes & R. Moffitt, "undated". "The effectiveness of financial work incentives in DI and SSI: Lessons from other transfer programs," Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Papers 1073-95, University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty.
    3. Blundell, Richard & Macurdy, Thomas, 1999. "Labor supply: A review of alternative approaches," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 27, pages 1559-1695, Elsevier.
    4. Michael P. Keane, 1995. "A new idea for welfare reform," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 19(Spr), pages 2-28.
    5. Hoynes, Hilary Williamson, 1996. "Welfare Transfers in Two-Parent Families: Labor Supply and Welfare Participation under AFDC-UP," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(2), pages 295-332, March.
    6. Susan E Mayer, 2000. "Why Welfare Caseloads Fluctuate: A Review of Research on AFDC, SSI, and the Food Stamps Program," Treasury Working Paper Series 00/07, New Zealand Treasury.
    7. Kathleen M. McGarry, 2002. "Guaranteed Income. SSI and the Well-Being of the Elderly Poor," NBER Chapters, in: The Distributional Aspects of Social Security and Social Security Reform, pages 49-84, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Gary Painter, 1999. "Low-Income Housing Assistance: Its Impact on Labor Force and Housing Program Participation," Working Paper 8667, USC Lusk Center for Real Estate.
    9. H. W. Hoynes, "undated". "Work, Welfare, and Family Structure: A Review of the Evidence," Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Papers 1103-96, University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty.
    10. van de Walle, Dominique, 2011. "Lasting welfare effects of widowhood in a poor country," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5734, The World Bank.
    11. E. J. Bird, "undated". "Exploring the stigma of food stamps," Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Papers 1097-96, University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty.
    12. Huffman, Sonya Kostova & Jensen, Helen H., 2003. "Do Food Assistance Programs Improve Household Food Security?: Recent Evidence From The United States," 2003 Annual meeting, July 27-30, Montreal, Canada 22219, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    13. Michael D. Hurd & Daniel McFadden & Angela Merrill, 2001. "Predictors of Mortality among the Elderly," NBER Chapters, in: Themes in the Economics of Aging, pages 171-198, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. James P. Smith, 2004. "New Directions in Socioeconomic Research on Aging," Labor and Demography 0403016, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Burton Mark & Macher Jeffrey & Mayo John W, 2007. "Understanding Participation in Social Programs: Why Don't Households Pick up the Lifeline?," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 1-28, November.
    16. R. Vincent Pohl, 2018. "Medicaid And The Labor Supply Of Single Mothers: Implications For Health Care Reform," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 59(3), pages 1283-1313, August.
    17. Orazio P. Attanasio & Hilary Williamson Hoynes, 2000. "Differential Mortality and Wealth Accumulation," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 35(1), pages 1-29.
    18. Sutirtha Bandyopadhyay & Bipasha Maity, 2021. "Widowhood and Consumption of Private Assignable Goods: The Role of Socio-Economic Status, Rainfall Shocks and Historical Institutions," Working Papers 73, Ashoka University, Department of Economics.
    19. B. Douglas Bernheim & Lorenzo Forni & Jagadeesh Gokhale & Laurence J. Kotlikoff, 1999. "The adequacy of life insurance: evidence from the health and retirement survey," Working Papers (Old Series) 9914, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    20. Nicholas, Lauren Hersch & Baum, Micah Y., 2020. "Wills, public policy, and financial well-being among surviving spouses," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 16(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:5250. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.