The Impact of Work Incentives Benefits Counseling on Employment Outcomes: A National Vocational Rehabilitation Study.
Cahit Kaya, Malachy Bishop, Ayse Torres
PMID 36652156WHAT IT FOUND
Clients with disabilities receiving Social Security benefits who got work-incentives counseling were more likely to have competitive employment (34.3% vs 29.4%), but among those employed they earned less per hour and worked fewer weekly hours.
Key findings
01In the matched subsample, clients who received work incentives benefits counseling had competitive employment at closure 34.3% versus 29.4% for clients who did not receive counseling.
02Among clients who achieved competitive employment, the counseling group had lower mean hourly wage ($11.87 versus $12.82) and fewer mean hours worked per week (22.68 versus 25.85).
03Work incentives benefits counseling was provided to 10.6% of the analysed VR clients receiving SSI or SSDI.
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What it does not show
The study is observational and ex post facto, so it shows association, not that counseling caused better employment. All clients had received at least one vocational rehabilitation service, and the data do not show which other services each client received, so counseling cannot be separated from other supports. The main employment comparison used a subsample of 963 counseling recipients and 963 matched non-recipients, not all 94,706 analysed cases. The data set lacked information about clients' functional limitations, so results may not apply to patients with very high or very low functional needs. Only fiscal year 2018 was analysed because data definitions changed after 2017, limiting comparison with earlier years. Benefit status came from vocational rehabilitation records rather than Social Security administrative data, and data entry errors were possible. Other potential confounders, such as the total number or type of other services received, were not included.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that work incentives counseling alone caused higher employment. The study compared records of clients who did or did not receive counseling, but all clients had received at least one vocational rehabilitation service, and unmeasured differences such as functional ability, motivation, or other services could explain the result.