Overview
A new federal law in 1997 gave authority to the Social Security Administration (SSA) to test rule changes in the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program. SSA was to conduct a project to find out whether a change in SSDI rules would increase employment and earnings of beneficiaries and save money for the Social Security Trust Fund.
The major rule change for this project was to offer a "benefit offset" to SSDI beneficiaries to see if this change would result in beneficiaries working more, increasing their earnings, and creating savings for the SSA program.
The Benefit Offset Demonstration is to be a large national project based on scientific research methods. Prior to launching a large national project, SSA funded 4 state pilot projects to find and work out on a smaller scale issues that might affect a subsequent national demonstration project. The four states chosen to conduct the pilots were Connecticut, Utah, Vermont, and Wisconsin. SSA requested each state develop a proposal to implement the benefit offset pilot and a plan for answering the research questions. Thus each of the four states developed different approaches to implementing and evaluating the benefit offset pilot.
The pilots were based on an experimental design in which SSDI beneficiaries were recruited and asked to give informed consent to be in the pilot. If consent was obtained, the pilots randomly assigned participants to either an "intervention" group or a "control" group. Participants assigned to the intervention group were eligible for the benefit offset and other rule changes, while participants assigned to the control group had no changes to the rules. All pilot participants were offered benefits counseling services. SSA assured participants that no one would be harmed by their participation in the Pilot and participants were not required to work.
The pilot projects targeted beneficiaries already receiving SSDI benefits, not new applicants for the program. SSA limited participation in the pilots to those beneficiaries who received SSDI benefits ONLY. Individuals concurrently receiving SSI benefits, and those receiving Childhood Disability Benefits (CDB) were not included in the Pilots. The original 4-state contracts were made for 24 months, and then were extended for at least one additional year.