Social Security Administration

How will welfare reform affect disability programs? Lewin evaluated the effects of recent welfare reform legislation on the Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) Program and the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Program. Some of the reforms affect SSA programs directly ("SSA reforms"), while others have an indirect effect through program interactions ("non-SSA reforms"). Evaluation options are developed to estimate the impact of the non-SSA reforms alone, and to estimate the total effect of all recent SSA and non-SSA reforms. To develop these options, we conducted several activities to collect supportive information, including: a major literature review; a review of ongoing and proposed state and other welfare reform evaluation efforts; five state site visits; and an analysis of SSA administrative data, both by itself, and matched to data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation. We present four options that can be implemented independently or in a complementary manner.

"Throughout the engagement, Lewin consultants listened to us and delivered superb analyses and thoughtful guidance–not canned solutions."  NONPROFIT HEALTH SYSTEM