As the population ages in the United States and other countries, encouraging older individuals to work would help counter increasing dependency ratios and improve national economic outcomes. Extending working lives is likely not simply a function of improving monetary incentives.…

Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) is the nation’s most important public support for the working-age population with disabilities. The health of this population is a key driver of enrollment and spending in the DI program and the related Supplemental Security…

Awards of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits to disabled workers increased rapidly and then declined in the decade after the Great Recession began. We hypothesize that the recession initially accelerated awards to workers who would have worked longer and…

A number of the most prevalent mental illnesses lead to significant cognitive dysfunction.  They can have important impacts on attention, working memory, executive function, processing speed, and social cognition. These dysfunctions translate into impairments in skills that are known to…

Both wealth and mortality inequality have recently increased, which may lead to greater aggregate Social Security payouts because individuals with greater annual benefits tend to live longer. An important question is whether this trend in mortality inequality will continue. We…