Showing papers on "Disability insurance published in 1984"

The Decline in Male Labor Force Participation: Comment

Abstract: In an article in thisJournal, Parsons (1980a) analyzes the doubling in the rate of' nonparticipation in the labor force of older men since 1946. Using cross-sectional data from the National Longitudinal Survey (Parnes et al. 1970) in an index function model of the labor force participation decision, he tests the assertion that the withdrawal of older males is attributable to the rapid expansion of alternatives to work provided by the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program. He reports an elasticity of nonparticipation with respect to the replacement rate of' SSDI benefits of' .631 and concludes that the recent decline in labor force participation can be "largely explained by the increased generosity of' social welfare transfers, particularly Social Security disability payments" (p. 130). The magnitude of Parsons's estimate and its impact on the public debate over disability transfer policy require careful scrutiny of' its basis. In Section I, we describe Parsons's econometric model and construction of' variables; in Section II we provide a critique. In Section III, we test the robustness of Parsons's elasticity estimate by presenting alternative estimates based on corrections and extensions of his basic model. Section IV concludes.

Pensions in the American Economy

Abstract: For anyone with an interest in pensions workers and employers, personnel directors, accountants, actuaries, lawyers, insurance agents, financial analysts, government officials, and social scientists this book is required reading. Now, without the aid of a pension specialist, anyone can determine how their particular pension plan stacks up against the average. Using virtually all available government sources (includingcomputerized data unavailable in print) and their own extensive surveys, the authors present a comprehensive description of the structural features and financial conditions of U.S. private, state, city, and municipal pension plans. The introductions to the hundreds of tables explain and highlight the information. The picture that emerges of the "typical" plan and its significant variations is crucial to all those with a financial stake in pensions. The reader can compare pension vesting, retirement, and benefit provisions by plan type, plan size, industry, union status, and many more characteristics. With this information, workers can evaluate just how generous their employer is; job applicants can compare fringe benefits of prospective employers; personnel directors can judge their competitive edge. The financial community will find especially interesting the analysis of the unfunded liabilities of private, state, and local pension funds. The investment decisions of private and public pension funds and their return performances are described as well. Government officials and social scientists will find the analysis of pension coverage, the receipt of pension income by the elderly, cost-of-living adjustments, and disability insurance of special importance in evaluating the proper degree of public intervention in the area of old age income support. "Pensions in the American Economy" is comprehensive and easy to use. Every reader, from small-business owners and civil servants to pension fund specialists, will find in it essential information about this increasingly important part of labor compensation and retirement finances."

Occupational illness. The issue of causality.

Abstract: Following European precedents, workers' compensation statutes and the Social Security Disability Insurance program were developed in the United States to deal with the problem of work incapacity. The former was designed to insure for loss of wages consequent to workplace injury, the latter to insure against poverty consequent to work incapacity. Issues such as employer or product culpability, quantification of the magnitude of work incapacity, and insurance for partially restricted work capacity have greatly distorted the intent of these programs; both now provide financial awards based more on damage and disease rather than on the illness of work incapacity. Understanding this evolution will allow physicians to offer more appropriate guidance to their patients, to contribute their voices and perspective to the sociopolitical ethos, and to distinguish the legal issue of culpability from the clinical issues of pathogenesis of disease and of the role of human and work-place factors in causing the disease to be manifest as the illness of work capacity. Language: en

The Medicare Debate — Round One

Abstract: Depletion of Medicare's Hospital Insurance Trust Fund is expected by the early 1990s.1 The complexities of the Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance programs, which pay monthly stipends to over 35 million people, have overshadowed Medicare in quadrennial reviews mandated by the Social Security Act. Even the National Commission on Social Security Reform,2 whose 1983 report led to major legislative changes, gave little attention to Medicare's looming problems. The 1982–1983 Advisory Council on Social Security, for the first time, was asked to concentrate its review and recommendations on Medicare. The council's report,3 sent to Congress in March 1984, formally begins . . .

A comparison of MMPI profiles for state and private disability insurance applicants.

Abstract: The use of the MMPI in predicting successful rehabilitation outcomes has met with limited success. Because the motives of a disability insurance applicant may differ greatly from a disability insurance recipient, disability applicants were investigated. The MMPI scores of state disability applicants and private industrial insurance applicants were compared to a control group. Positive outcomes of test taking was possible for all three groups. Significant group differences were found for scales F, Hs, D, Hy, Pd, Pa, Pt, Sc, and Ma. Significant sex differences were found for scales Hs, D, Hy, Mf, Pt, and Sc.

Workers' compensation: coverage, benefits, and costs, 1982.

Abstract: Workers' compensation provides medical care and income maintenance protection to workers disabled from work-related injury or illness. This program is of considerable interest to the Social Security Administration (SSA) from several perspectives. For example, since 1965 Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) benefits and workers' compensation payments have been integrated. Information on the experience under workers' compensation provides a framework for examining questions concerning gaps and overlaps in the Nation's social insurance system. In addition, since December 1969 SSA has administered claims filed through 1973 under part B of the Black Lung program--the program providing income maintenance protection to coal miners disabled by pneumoconiosis. The workers' compensation experience reported here consists of information on benefits for work-related injury and disease, including data on the combined benefits paid under the entire Federal Black Lung program administered by the Labor Department and SSA.

The 1983 Amendments to the Social Security Act: The Issue of Intergenerational Equity

Abstract: WITH THE enactment of P.L. Martha N. Ozawa than was needed to pay benefits. Be 98-21, the Social Security Act tween 1975 and 1981, OASI expert amendments of 1983, this country enced a net decrease in its trust fund demonstrated that it is willing to face of $790 million to $4.9 billion a year. head on the challenge of meeting Because of the continuing imbalance social security's enormous financial Have the 1983 amendments between income and disbursement, crisis. Through a complex, sweeping, fh cnninl „IPT,,o thp conditions have grown even further without the on April 21, 1983: article reviews me conciliions 1983 was considered to that prevailed before the pasbe short range and related to the Our elderly need no longer fear sage of the amendments, the general economy. Until two years that the checks they depend on probable effects of the amendago, the American economy suffered will be stopped or reduced. These ments, and the future direcfr°m high inflation and was crippled amendments protect them. Amer«nn nf cnrin 1 ^prurito by high unemployment. Struggling icans of middle age need no longJ against such economic adversity, the er worry whether their career-long social security system had to take investment will pay off. These care of benefit obligations that grew amendments guarantee it. And commensurate with the rising cost of younger people can feel confident living and manage revenue that was that Social Security will be around conditions of the old age and surnot increasing enough to meet the when they need it to cushion their vivors insurance (OASI) trust fund obligations. It was estimated that retirement.1 before the 1983 amendments were deficits would reach between $150 enacted and reviews the relationship and $200 billion during the years Although the 1983 amendments between past contributions and fu1983-89. apparently have solved the short-term ture benefits for different cohorts of In addition to the short-term prob and long-term financial problems, average-wage earners. (These future lem, social security faced a long questions such as these remain: Can benefits were projected before Conrange financial problem, caused pri the public maintain its sense of relief gress enacted the 1983 amendments.) marily by the shifting composition of and stability about social security for Second, it reviews the Congressional workers and beneficiaries. When the the next seventy-five years? Will the actions taken in the 1983 amendbaby-boom generation retires in the nation be free of political controversy ments. Third, it discusses future imnext century, two workers will be over social security for the next sevplications of the Congressional actions supporting one beneficiary; the cur enty-five years? Will different cohorts that may shed light on the questions rent ratio is three to one. For OASI of beneficiaries feel they are being that were just raised. to meet its growing financial obliga treated fairly regarding the amount tions to pay benefits, it was estimated of benefits they will receive during before THE 1983 that from 1982 until 2056, additional this period? Will future generations AMFIvnvrFNT«; revenue equivalent to 2.48 percent of of social security taxpayers feel they A 10 the taxable payroll would be required are being treated fairly about the Financial difficulties in social security above the revenue anticipated under taxes they will have to pay? were first noticed in the mid-1970s the earlier law. Even when the OASI This article is divided into three when the OASI trust fund collected and the disability insurance (DI) trust parts. First, it discusses the financial revenue that was consistently smaller funds were considered together, a

Breastfeeding and the working mother: barriers and solutions.

Abstract: Over 1/2 of all women in the US currently participate in the labor force; 41% of mothers in the labor force have children under 1 year of age. As more mothers of young children elect to work the need for more supportive breastfeeding policies at the worksite becomes quite evident. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the WHO have noted that the work environment in both policy and structure is often not supportive of women who choose to breastfeed. This paper examines logistical social and political barriers to breastfeeding at the workplace. These include: insufficiently comprehensive maternity leave policies lack of child care at or near the workplace rigid time schedules that do not allow for nursing breaks no private location for breastpumping and no facilities for refrigeration of pumped breastmilk. Short and long term solutions to help employers address each of these issues are outlined. Short term solutions to the problem of the lack of child care at or near the workplace are the provision of information to mothers about child care near the worksite and the establishment of a child care information referral system; a long term solution is the establishment of governmental policies to enable the majority of employers to subsidize child care. To overcome the problem of poor working conditions on a short-term basis nursing breaks should be provided for working mothers as well as a place where they can pump and refrigerate their milk; as a long term solution flex time job sharing programs and part-time options at the worksite should be available. Inadequate maternity leave programs and loss of employment can be combatted by encouraging legislation for disability insurance in states where programs do not exist and by establishing a national maternity policy with job protected leave full or partial wage replacement and health insurance. Societal attitudes toward breastfeeding can be dealt with by developing public education programs and educational programs for pre-school and school-aged children. Prenatal education and the integration of material about working and breastfeeding in all prenatal programs would combat maternal lack of knowledge and understanding about breastfeeding. Professional education programs for health workers especially occupational health physicians and nurses and integrating breastfeeding information into professional training programs are needed to overcome health professionals s lack of understanding and knowledge of breastfeeding.

The Calculation of Periodic Payments for Permanent Disability

Abstract: Methods of calculating benefits, particularly for permanent disability, remain a serious problem for both private and government plans of disability insurance. Professor Ison analyses some of the methods in use. His evaluation includes not only the financial implications to recipients of alternative methods of calculation, but also the social costs and the probable effects on the physical and mental health and the morale of claimants. His critique concludes by suggesting a combination of two methods to provide the optimum solution to the problems identified. This article is available in Osgoode Hall Law Journal: http://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/ohlj/vol22/iss4/5 THE CALCULATION OF PERIODIC PAYMENTS FOR PERMANENT DISABILITY

Evolution of the movements of frontier workers in Belgium from 1972 to 1982. An attempt to use the annual statistics of the National Institute for Health and Disability Insurance (INAMI)

Abstract: A review of recent trends in the daily international commuting of Belgian workers living near the frontiers is presented for the period 1972 to 1982. The data for the analysis are taken from the annual statistics published by the National Institute for Health and Disability Insurance. The characteristics of this migrant population are described and an analysis of these movements is presented at the arrondissement level. (summary in ENG) (ANNOTATION)

The Calculation of Periodic Payments for Permanent Disability

Abstract: Methods of calculating benefits, particularly for permanent disability, remain a serious problem for both private and government plans of disability insurance. Professor Ison analyses some of the methods in use. His evaluation includes not only the financial implications to recipients of alternative methods of calculation, but also the social costs and the probable effects on the physical and mental health and the morale of claimants. His critique concludes by suggesting a combination of two methods to provide the optimum solution to the problems identified.

Economic Constraints on the Effectiveness of Litigation and Legislation for the Disabled

Abstract: Disability programs in the United States have come under a variety of criticisms in recent years [1, 2]. Dissatisfaction with disability policy stems from the perception that some individual programs are ineffective, inequitable, and too costly. At the same time, the entire system of disability programs can be described as confusing and inadequate [3, 4].