The U.S. Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) program has grown dramatically over the last 20 years in size and expense. This growth poses significant risks to the finances of the DI program and ...the broader Social Security system, and raises troubling questions as to whether the program is being misused by claimants. This article first provides an overview of the Disability Insurance program, describing who qualifies for the program, how an individual applies for benefits and how the level of benefits is determined. Next, we summarize the factors responsible for the growth in the DI rolls and discuss how the characteristics of DI recipients have changed as a result. We then explore the extent of moral hazard in the DI program and the effectiveness of the screening process in distinguishing meritorious from nonmeritorious claims. Finally, we identify the challenges that the DI program creates for Social Security finances and Social Security reform, and discuss potential reforms to the DI program.
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The book presents a multifaceted analysis of the social security system in the Balkan states and offers a comprehensive overview and recommendations on social problems in the region.
To what extent do international organizations, global policy networks, and transnational policy entrepreneurs influence domestic policy makers? Have we entered a new phase of globalization that, ...unbeknownst to most citizens, shapes policies that used to be the sole domain of domestic politics?Privatizing Pensionsreveals how international institutions--such as the World Bank, USAID, and other transnational policy actors--have played a seminal role in the development, diffusion, and implementation of new pension reforms that are transforming the postwar social contract in more than thirty countries worldwide, including the United States.
Mitchell Orenstein shows how transnational actors have driven change in a policy area once thought to be beyond reform in many countries, and how they have done so by deploying their unique resources and legitimacy to promote new ideas, recruit disciples worldwide, and provide a broad range of technical assistance to government reformers over the long term. He demonstrates that while domestic decision makers may retain veto power over these reforms--which replace traditional social security with individual pension savings accounts--transnational policy makers play the role of "proposal actors," shaping the information, preferences, and resources of their domestic clients.
Privatizing Pensionsargues that even the most quintessentially domestic areas of policy have been thoroughly globalized, and that these international influences must be better understood.
In 1995, the Social Security Administration started sending out the annual Social Security Statement. It contains information about the worker's estimated benefits at the ages 62, 65, and 70. I use ...this unique natural experiment to analyze the retirement and claiming decision making. First, I find that, despite the previous availability of information, the Statement has a significant impact on workers' knowledge about their benefits. These findings are consistent with a model where workers need to gather costly information in order to improve their retirement decision. Second, I use this exogenous variation in knowledge to analyze the optimality of workers' decisions. Several findings suggest that workers do not change their retirement behavior: i) Workers do not change their expected age of retirement after receiving the Statement; ii) monthly claiming patterns do not show any change after the introduction of the Social Security Statement; iii) workers do not become more sensitive to Social Security incentives after receiving the Statement. More research is needed to establish whether workers are already behaving optimally, but the information contained in the Statement is not sufficient to improve their retirement behavior.
► I exploit the stepwise introduction of Social Security Statement to analyze retirement behavior. ► The Statement has a significant impact on workers' knowledge about their benefits. ► Information appears to be costly. ► But workers do not show any change in behavior. ► Information contained in the Statement is not sufficient to improve their retirement behavior.
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This book explains how the success of attempts to expand the boundaries of the postwar welfare state in The Netherlands and the United Kingdom depended on organized labor's willingness to support ...redistribution of risk and income among different groups of workers. By illuminating and explaining differences within and between labor union movements, it traces the historical origins of 'inclusive' and 'dual' welfare systems. In doing so, the book shows that labor unions can either have a profoundly conservative impact on the welfare state or act as an impelling force for progressive welfare reform. Based on an extensive range of archive material, this book explores the institutional foundations of social solidarity.
El presente artículo da a conocer los resultados de un estudio exploratorio enfocado a indagar las características de la evaluación diagnóstica de la escritura académico-científica en estudiantes de ...doctorado. Esta forma de caracterizar la escritura busca pensar con los profesionales que cursan carreras de posgrado en alternativas de participación en prácticas y comunidades de escritura que amplíen las oportunidades de interacción y potencien la identidad enunciativa. Sin duda, cultivar la cualidad de autor y exhibirla ante la comunidad científica supone esforzarse por dejar oír su voz en medio del concierto de voces que han legitimado su presencia con planteamientos y perspectivas canónicas. La muestra de estudio, elegida por conveniencia, estuvo conformada por 74 doctorandos en Educación y Sociedad de la Universidad de La Salle en Bogotá, Colombia, a partir de quienes respondieron una encuesta en línea y, posteriormente, 9 de ellos participaron voluntariamente en el análisis de los resultados mediante tres grupos focales.
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