U.S. Department of Health and Human ServicesU.S. Department of Health and Human Services
This report was prepared under contract #HHS-88-0047 between the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Mathematica Policy Research. SysteMetrics/McGraw-Hill was a subcontractor for the project. For additional information about the study, you may visit the DALTCP home page at http://aspe.hhs.gov/daltcp/home.htm or contact the Office of Disability, Aging and Long-Term Care Policy at HHS/ASPE/DALTCP, Room 424E, H.H. Humphrey Building, 200 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, DC 20201. The e-mail address is: webmaster.DALTCP@hhs.gov. The DALTCP Project Officer was Michele Adler.
This report relies on data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation to explore the extent to which persons with disabilities participate in federally subsidized cash and in-kind programs and the adequacy of total benefits from the combination of programs in alleviating poverty among this group. The report establishes the existence of disabilities according to three broad definitions: limitations in functioning (defined differently for adults and children), limitations in work, and the receipt of disability benefits. A six-level scale of limitations in functioning and a four-level scale of limitations in work are used to account for a broad range of limitations--from the most severely disabled persons to those who report no limitations. In addition, we use the term "substantial functional limitations" to denote persons whose level of limitation in functioning is more severe than experiencing difficulty with just one function.
This study is part of a series of four reports prepared for the Department of Health and Human Services to gather information on the population of persons with disabilities. Other reports in the series include the following:
A profile of persons with disabilities that provides the motivation for the different definitions and classifications of disability used in this study and which details both the prevalence of disabilities and the characteristics of the population with and without disabilities.
A profile of the rules and benefit structures of the Federal programs which serve the disabled.
A profile of persons with disabilities who are in the labor market.
The program participation patterns of the population of disabled persons and the adequacy of Federal assistance in alleviating poverty among this group are summarized below.
Programs designed to provide financial assistance to the disabled working-age population (Social Security Disability Insurance, Supplemental Security Income and Medicare) are well targeted, in that:
Two-thirds or more of participants have substantial functional limitations or are prevented from working.
The likelihood of participation increases with the presence and severity of a limitation in functioning or a limitation in work.
Among the working-age adult population, Social Security benefits are very effective at reducing poverty, and are more effective for persons with disabilities than the total population. Cash assistance programs combined with food stamps are successful at increasing the economic status of persons in very poor households (defined as households whose pretransfer household income is below half the poverty line). Nonetheless, one-third of very poor persons with disabilities and one-fourth of the total population of the very poor are still in poverty even after the receipt of these benefits.
Social Security benefits are very successful at alleviating poverty among the elderly population. However, proportionately more disabled elderly persons remain in poverty after the receipt of Federal cash assistance and food stamps than is true of the total population of elderly persons.
Small sample sizes preclude drawing specific statements about the impact of Federal assistance programs on the poverty status of disabled children. However, over four-fifths of children whose pre-transfer household income is below half the poverty line and almost one-third of children in other pretransfer poor households remain poor after Federal cash assistance and food stamps are taken into account.