Summary
On this research, we look at the impact of the suspension of in-person providers at Social Safety Administration (SSA) subject workplaces in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic on purposes and the traits of candidates to see if sure teams of beneficiaries have been disproportionately affected. We look at how applicant traits fluctuate by the mode of software—in-person, telephone, or on-line—to know 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 impression of the suspension of in-person providers on the amount of purposes and the demographic composition of candidates whereas controlling for different pandemic-related components. Our evaluation information consists of software data from SSA’s Structured Information Repository, mixed with applicant work historical past data from the Digital Claims Evaluation sTool. We mixed the executive information with location data of SSA subject workplaces and county data from the American Group Survey and the New York Instances COVID-19 repository.
The paper discovered that:
- There have been systematic variations within the traits of candidates by mode of software. In-person candidates have been older, much less more likely to have accomplished highschool, and fewer more likely to converse English in comparison with telephone or on-line candidates.
- The suspension brought on a 6-percent lower within the quantity of purposes, implying that not everybody who wished to use in-person was in a position to apply utilizing different modes. The impact was bigger for Supplemental Safety Earnings (SSI) purposes in comparison with Social Safety Incapacity Insurance coverage (DI) purposes.
- The suspension of in-person providers brought on some would-be in-person candidates to use by telephone, nevertheless it didn’t trigger a rise within the quantity of on-line purposes.
- 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 % of the decline in SSI and DI purposes in the course of the pandemic.
The coverage implications of the findings are:
- Insurance policies that goal to lift consciousness and use of on-line providers might considerably scale back software boundaries to eligible people; nonetheless, they might assist some sorts of eligible people greater than others.
- Understanding the traits of candidates who use the completely different modes of software may very well be helpful in serving to the federal government effectively allocate sources to assist entry to the applying course of.
- Our outcomes point out that a greater understanding of how software mode impacts the completeness and high quality of SSI or DI purposes might finally result in potential software helps (equivalent to entry to a web-based chat with an SSA consultant) for modes of software that are typically related to comparatively decrease software high quality.