Differences in Disability Insurance Allowance Rates
August 2025
Working Paper Number:
CES-25-54
Abstract
Allowance rates for disability insurance applications vary by race and ethnicity, but it is unclear to what extent these differences are artifacts of other differing socio-economic and health characteristics, or selection issues in SSA's race and ethnicity data. This paper uses the 2015 American Community Survey linked to 2015-2019 SSA administrative data to investigate DI application allowance rates among non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, non-Hispanic Asian, non-Hispanic American Indian/Alaska Native, and Hispanic applicants aged 25-65. The analysis uses regression, propensity score matching, and inverse probability weighting to estimate differences in allowance rates among applicants who are similar on observable characteristics. Relative to raw comparisons, differences by race and ethnicity in multivariate analyses are substantially smaller in magnitude and are generally not statistically significant.
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:
respondent,
ethnicity,
ethnic,
hispanic,
asian,
insurance,
latino,
racial,
race,
indian,
ssa,
benefit,
eligibility,
disability,
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Social Security Administration,
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Office of Management and Budget,
Current Population Survey,
Survey of Income and Program Participation,
General Accounting Office,
Social Security,
American Community Survey,
Social Security Number,
Health and Retirement Study,
Detailed Earnings Records,
Protected Identification Key,
Social Security Disability Insurance,
Census Bureau Disclosure Review Board,
ASEC,
CPS ASEC
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