Reinventing Disability Policy

UC Berkeley Working Paper No. 65

21 Pages Posted: 1 Sep 1998

See all articles by David I. Levine

David I. Levine

University of California, Berkeley - Haas School of Business

Date Written: April 1998

Abstract

The disability system in the United States spends approximately $120 billion a year to keep millions of working-aged people on poverty-level stipends while essentially banning them from working. A reinvented system would focus on moving people from dependence to independence with flexible vocational rehabilitation vouchers, work-oriented assessments, and simple rules that guarantee that nobody would ever be made worse off by working. A problem with creating a system that combines work and partial disability benefits is that it may attract new entrants onto the disability rolls. A key insight of this proposal is that these generous work incentives can be tested on the current six million working-age recipients without inducing entry that raises costs.

JEL Classification: J28, J38, J18, J32

Suggested Citation

Levine, David Ian, Reinventing Disability Policy (April 1998). UC Berkeley Working Paper No. 65, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=121381 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.121381

David Ian Levine (Contact Author)

University of California, Berkeley - Haas School of Business ( email )

Berkeley, CA 94720
United States
510-642-1697 (Phone)
510-643-1420 (Fax)

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