TY  - JOUR
AU  - Leonard,Jonathan S.
TI  - The Social Security Disability Program and Labor Force Participation
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 392
PY  - 1979
Y2  - August 1979
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w0392
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w0392.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Jonathan S.. Leonard
Graduate School of Business
350 Barrows Hall
University of California
Berkeley, CA  94720
Tel: 415/642-7048
E-Mail: leonard@haas.berkeley.edu
AB  - In the last twenty years the labor force participation rates of 45 to 54-year-old men have fallen 10.6 percentage points among non-whites and 4.4 percentage points among whites. I find that nearly half of this puzzling decline can be explained by the growth of the Social Security Disability program. By 1975, 6.22% of the prime-age non-white men and 3.57% of the white men were Social Security Disability beneficiaries. Despite the medical screening of applicants, I find in cross-section estimates an elasticity of .35 for beneficiary status with respect to benefit levels. As eligibility requirements have eased and as benefit levels have increased relative to earnings more men have dropped out of the labor force and become Social Security Disability beneficiaries.
ER  -