text:
- Original article
- Open Access
Earnings after DI: evidence from full medical continuing disability reviews
- Jeffrey Hemmeter1Email author and
- Michelle Stegman Bailey1
© Hemmeter and Bailey. 2016
- Received: 9 October 2015
- Accepted: 22 February 2016
- Published: 10 June 2016
Social Security Disability Insurance beneficiaries undergo periodic medical reviews to determine if they continue to be eligible for disability benefits. We examine how these reviews affect beneficiary well-being by using administrative data to track the earnings of beneficiaries for up to 5 years after their reviews. We estimate that a sizeable percentage of beneficiaries would work if their benefits were ceased in a medical review. However, many appear to be unable to maintain employment: only one in three would have earnings over the full follow-up period. Further, far fewer would reach any of several measures of earnings sufficiency.
JEL codes: H51, H53, I38, J14
- Disability Insurance
- Continuing disability review
- Earnings
1 Introduction
In recent decades, spending on Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) worker benefits has increased due to an increase in the number of awards coupled with the length of time beneficiaries remain on the rolls.1 This increase in program costs has led to calls for stronger program oversight including tighter controls on program entry (see Morton 2015 for a review of various proposals) and helping current beneficiaries return to work (e.g., Social Security Advisory Board 2009; DeHaven 2013). One way to address this issue is to increase the number of post-award medical reviews that the Social Security Administration (SSA) conducts to determine whether beneficiaries remain eligible for the program. Whether SSA should increase the number of medical reviews depends on factors such as the potential program savings, the cause of the increase in the number of benefit awards in recent years, and the economic outcomes for beneficiaries removed from the rolls as a result of a medical review. We focus on the last point by examining the earnings of former beneficiaries, which we interpret as a plausible upper bound on the potential earnings that beneficiaries who remain eligible for the program could attain if their eligibility were hypothetically to cease.
In conducting medical reviews, SSA identifies some beneficiaries as no longer eligible, thereby saving the cost of future benefits that would have been paid to those individuals. Medical reviews can be very expensive; but even during the government sequestration in 2013, the president's budget called for an increase in program integrity, including the number of post-award medical reviews conducted by SSA to ensure beneficiaries remain eligible for the program. SSA estimated that for each $1 spent on these reviews approximately $13.2 in net Federal lifetime benefits (including Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance, Supplemental Security Income, Medicare, and Medicaid) were saved in FY 2011 (SSA 2013a), though there are different returns on investment by type of disability program (Stephens, 2014). The high average return suggests that SSA could conduct more reviews and save more in lifetime benefits, although these savings would outweigh the costs only up to a certain point.
Many have suggested that the increase in the number of beneficiaries is driven by the attractiveness of the disability programs relative to the job opportunities for workers with disabilities (e.g., Autor and Duggan 2006) and an increase in the number of applicants with harder-to-establish conditions such as musculoskeletal and mental impairments (e.g., Burkhauser and Daly 2011, 2012). However, others suggest that this increase is primarily a byproduct of an aging population and other demographic changes, such as the increasing proportion of women working and gaining insured status for DI (Goss, 2013). Identifying the cause of this increase is important and may have implications for any increase in the frequency or number of medical reviews. For instance, a higher proportion of beneficiaries with less easily verifiable conditions means that increased reviews will, in addition to removing beneficiaries who are no longer medically eligible, inevitably remove some who should remain eligible due to inherent uncertainties associated with their condition.
The effectiveness of conducting medical reviews depends in part on the fraction of beneficiaries on the rolls with the ability to work at a substantial level. The idea that many of the people receiving disability benefits would be gainfully employed in the absence of these programs has a long, if controversial, history. Parsons (1980), for example, argued that the reduction in labor force participation of working-age males was "largely explained by the increased generosity of social welfare transfers, particularly Social Security disability payments" (p. 130), and Black, Daniel, and Sanders (2002), Autor and Duggan (2003), and others have made similar points. Bound (1989), on the other hand, argued that an upper bound on the percent of older men receiving DI benefits in the 1970s who would work in the absence of DI was less than 50 %.
Although not without detractors (notably Parsons 1991), Bound's conclusions have been validated for a variety of other populations and years (see, for example, Chen and van der Klaaw 2008 and von Wachter, Song, and Manchester 2011). The increase in the proportion of younger applicants, and a higher likelihood of work among younger rejected applicants, has contributed to a gradual increase in Bound's estimated upper limit on employment among DI beneficiaries (von Wachter, Song, and Manchester 2011). Other recent studies have used instrumental variables to predict the employment impacts of DI (see Maestas, Mullen, and Strand (2013) and French and Song (2014), for example). These studies are similar in concept to the Bound approach but support a more causal interpretation and find somewhat larger impacts on employment than Bound.
While informative about the effect of the disability program on labor supply and earnings of the population, most studies have not typically provided information on the potential loss of benefits on the existing beneficiary population. This difference is subtle but important. Current beneficiaries are even more likely than applicants to suffer from human capital depreciation and weakened social and employment networks, resulting in larger barriers to employment. Brucker (2015), for example, found that individuals with disabilities in the labor force had higher levels of social capital than those with disabilities not in the labor force. Individuals removed from DI have been out of the labor force for several years and would thus be expected to have lower levels of social capital. Nichols et al. (2013), however, review the consequences of long-term unemployment, many of which would be expected to be relevant for individuals receiving DI and amplified by the presence of a disability, and find little evidence to explain exactly how these consequences lead to worse outcomes. If current beneficiaries are substantially less employable than applicants, the employment impacts of ceasing beneficiaries from the program may be smaller than those of tightening front-end eligibility.
There has been some research on DI beneficiaries who medically recover (e.g., Dykacz 1998; Hennessey and Dykacz 1993; Dykacz and Hennessey 1989; Treitel 1979; Schmulowitz 1973), but these studies do not look at the subsequent earnings. Moore (2014) analyzed SSA's elimination of drug abuse and alcoholism as a qualifying disability in the mid-1990s and found a large employment effect just after the termination of individuals with these diagnoses, but the effect declined over time. Moore's findings result from a unique change in policy—removing a specific disability category—and may not reflect the general population of disability beneficiaries.
Internationally, there is mixed evidence that tightening disability program eligibility rules impacts labor supply. Staubli (2011), for example, found that tightening the eligibility for Austria's disability insurance program increased employment. Conversely, Karlström, Palme, and Svensson (2008) found that a disability insurance rule change in Sweden had little impact on employment but did increase the use of other social services. Similarly, Borghans, Gielen, and Luttmer (2014) find that when benefits were decreased in the Netherlands, individuals often turned to other social services. However, they also found that many long-term disability recipients were capable of work at substantial levels.2
In this paper, we extend Bound's approach and examine the subsequent earnings of beneficiaries who undergo a medical review, comparing outcomes between those who remain eligible for disability benefits and those who do not, which we refer to as the exit margin. Whereas Bound (and subsequent researchers) used the earnings of denied applicants as the upper limit on the potential lost earnings and employment of allowed DI applicants, we use the earnings of beneficiaries whose program eligibility ceases because of a medical review as an upper limit on the potential earnings of beneficiaries who continue on the program. SSA refers to these medical reviews as continuing disability review (CDRs), and we describe individuals as "ceased" if SSA determines in a CDR that they are no longer eligible for disability benefits.
Although ceased individuals do not meet the medical standards for DI, it does not follow that they are able to earn at a level that would enable them to be self-sufficient for a sustained period. Indeed, the annual earnings in 2014 considered to qualify as substantial gainful activity (SGA) are only $1170 more than the 2014 poverty guideline for an individual over 12 months. An open question is whether individuals who lose eligibility for disability benefits are able to earn enough to avoid poverty. We provide some evidence of their earning capacity by comparing their post-cessation earnings with their pre-eligibility earnings and with measures of their potential benefit, the federal minimum wage, the SGA level, and the individual poverty guideline.
In brief, we find that the majority of ceased DI workers have earnings after program exit. For obvious reasons, individuals who remain eligible for benefits are less likely to seek employment than they would if they were ceased; for that group, we estimate an upper bound for the likelihood of having earnings of about 43 percentage points if they were ceased. Average earnings are generally low, only $13,000. Additionally, while over half of ceased DI workers earn above the SGA level or the individual poverty threshold in at least one of the 5 years after program exit, only about 20 % consistently earn over SGA or the poverty threshold in all post-program years.
2 SSA disability policy
For an adult to be eligible for DI, he or she must be unable to engage in SGA by reason of any medically determinable physical or mental impairment that is expected to result in death or to last for a continuous period of at least 12 months. Factors such as age, education, the ability to do prior work, and the ability to perform other jobs in the national economy can also be considered when determining whether a person has a disability that qualifies for the program.
To be insured for DI benefits, an individual must have a sufficient and recent work history, measured in quarters of coverage or work credits, in a covered job to meet eligibility requirements. Each year, the level of earnings required for one quarter of coverage changes; in 2016, it was $1260. An individual can earn up to four quarters of coverage per year. Although the number of quarters required for eligibility varies by age at disability onset, an individual generally needs a minimum of six quarters of coverage plus an additional quarter for each year after attaining age 22, with a maximum requirement of 40 quarters of coverage. For those over the age of 30 at disability onset, individuals must have earned at least 20 quarters of coverage during the 10 years prior to onset.3
SSA also operates the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, for which DI beneficiaries may also be eligible.4 While the adult eligibility criteria for the SSI program include the same definition of disability as the DI program, there is no work history requirement, but individuals can have no more than $2000 in resources (or $3000 for couples, if both members are eligible.) Additionally, there are residency, citizenship, and other requirements for SSI. Eligible individuals receive the Federal benefit rate ($721 in 2014) plus any state supplements, less any countable income. Unearned income, such as DI benefits, reduces SSI payments dollar for dollar after an initial disregard of the first $20 of unearned income.
DI beneficiaries can earn any amount of money during a rolling 9-month trial work period every 60 months. If they earn more than SGA after the trial work period, they enter a 36-month extended period of eligibility during which they may receive benefits for each month they do not work above SGA. If they have earnings above SGA at the end of this period, their eligibility is terminated but can be reinstated expeditiously during the following 5 years. Beneficiaries can also take advantage of many work incentives designed to minimize the impact of returning to work on benefits.
2.1 The medical CDR process5
Despite SSA's work incentives and return-to-work programs, DI is designed for those with disabilities that substantially limit the ability to work. To ensure that only eligible individuals remain on the program, SSA reviews several hundred thousand cases each year looking for medical improvement since the last favorable eligibility determination (i.e., the initial allowance for first-time CDRs or the most recent CDR continuation for subsequent CDRs). Medical CDRs are mandated by law, though SSA has some discretion in how to administer them. The date for a CDR, known as a diary date, is set at the time benefits are awarded, and a new diary date is set at each subsequent favorable decision. These diary dates range from 6 months to 7 years, depending on the likelihood of medical improvement.
Each year, SSA uses a profiling model controlling for various demographic and programmatic characteristics to determine whether to send a case through the full medical review (FMR) process (known as a "direct release") or to mail the beneficiary a questionnaire asking for more information (known as a "mailer"). The model generates a score for each beneficiary, with higher scores corresponding to a greater likelihood of medical improvement. Cases with high scores that are due (or overdue) for a review are typically sent directly through the FMR process whereas corresponding medium and low-scoring cases receive the mailer questionnaire first. Beneficiaries who receive mailers are asked to provide SSA with more information about their current medical status and their ability to work. Cases with mailer responses that show an indication of medical improvement are in turn sent through the FMR process. If there is no indication of medical improvement in the responses, the beneficiary continues on the program, and a new diary date is set for the next review.
For mailer responses indicating an FMR is necessary, as well as for those directly released for an FMR, the state Disability Determination Services (DDS) gathers relevant information to make a determination. If there is sufficient evidence of medical improvement since the last favorable decision, the beneficiary receives a cessation decision. This decision can be appealed to several levels—a reconsideration at the DDS, an administrative law judge (ALJ) review, an Appeals Council review, and ultimately a review in the Federal courts. If there is insufficient evidence of medical improvement since the last favorable decision, the beneficiary continues on the program and a new CDR diary date is set.6
2.2 CDR workload
3 Data sources
SSA's CDR Waterfall file contains information on centrally initiated FMRs which received a DDS determination. We focus on individuals in the DI program who had an FMR from calendar years 1998 through 2008. Among other information, the Waterfall file includes date of birth, gender, date of program eligibility, the primary diagnosis prior to the FMR, diary type (medical improvement expected (MIE), possible (MIP), or not expected (MINE)),7 whether the individual received a mailer prior to the FMR, the CDR profile score, dates of the initial and final FMR decisions, and the final outcome of the FMR (continued or ceased) after all appeals.
We merged the Waterfall file with SSA's Numident file to obtain dates of death and with the Master Beneficiary Record (SSA's main records for the DI program) to replace missing dates of birth. We also used SSA's Disability Research File to determine whether an individual returns to either DI or SSI after cessation. Data for individuals who died during the study period are included in our analyses for as long as they were alive.8
Additionally, we merged the data with the Summary Earnings Record (SER) to include earnings subject to the Social Security tax.9 At the time the data was drawn, the SER was complete through 2012, providing at least 4 years of follow-up for almost all target population members. For several of our analyses, we examine mean earnings for up to 5 years before program eligibility and up to 5 years after the FMR. For example, to measure mean earnings after the final FMR determination, we took the average earnings during the 5 years after the year of the final FMR—for an individual whose final decision was in 2003, this includes earnings in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008. We chose 5 years because that allows for most individuals who return to work to re-establish themselves in the work force.10 For cohorts with fewer than 5 years after the final FMR, we use the mean earnings for all years through 2012—for an individual whose final decision was in 2008, we take the mean of earnings in 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012. We also looked at shorter measures of earnings, including earnings in each year after the FMR, and the results are qualitatively similar. We adjust all earnings measures by the Consumer Price Index-All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) to 2012 dollars.11
3.1 Hypotheses and outcome measures
Similar to Bound's (1989) study of denied applicants, our results on the earnings of those who had their payments ceased due to an FMR may be interpreted as an upper limit to the potential earnings of those who remain on the program after an FMR if their eligibility had instead ceased. Theoretically, those who have their payments ceased are in better health and are therefore less likely to experience barriers in the labor market compared to those who continue to be medically eligible for the program. Hence, we can think of these estimated earnings as an upper bound of what we could expect if SSA mechanically increased the number of FMRs, within a particular CDR group, using the same selection criteria. While these individuals no longer meet the definition of disability used for SSA program eligibility, they likely continue to have barriers to employment, such as health deterioration, skill decay, and diminished social and employment networks.12 Increasing the number of FMRs would likely result in DI beneficiaries with more severe disabilities receiving those FMRs; these individuals would likely have greater labor market barriers than our target population and thus earn less.
where Y i is an outcome of interest, the set of which is described below; Ceased i is a dummy variable equal to 1 if the individual was ceased and 0 if continued; X ij is a set of J covariates13; e i is an error term; and a, b, and g j are parameters to be estimated.
Our outcomes of interest include whether an individual has earnings, the level of earnings, and comparisons to key earnings thresholds chosen to provide objective points of reference. For these additional earnings thresholds, we use 5-year averages to summarize the effect of the FMR cessation. While masking any potential differences in the impact from year to year, this formulation adds the convenience of providing a single estimate of the impact of the FMR for these outcomes. Supplemental data analyses (e.g., using various time measures of earnings—1 year, 2 years, etc.) indicated this loss of information is not a substantial issue. We present the predicted outcomes from Eq. (1) for all our results. These results are similar to unadjusted outcomes, which are available upon request.
The first comparison to an earnings threshold is whether post-FMR earnings are greater than pre-eligibility earnings, to determine whether individuals return to work at their prior level of earnings (as measured by their average earnings 5 years before eligibility). While we expect a decline in earnings in the few years before eligibility due to disability or job loss, we use 5-year earnings averages to mitigate this effect. The second threshold is the maximum potential benefit the individual could have received from SSA had he or she remained on the program and not returned to work.14 We do not use actual payments made to individuals while receiving benefits because it is not clear that the last payment or an average of recent payments would reflect the payments available to individuals had they remained on DI; any use of SSA's work incentives or other sources of income in SSA's records may be temporary.
We also measure whether post-FMR earnings are greater than the poverty threshold for a single person, an annualized equivalent of SGA (i.e., 12 times the monthly SGA), and the annualized equivalent of working full-time at the federal minimum wage level (assuming 2080 h a year). These last three measures provide comparative earning thresholds that are independent of the individual. Note that for the potential benefit, poverty threshold, SGA, and minimum wage comparisons, we use nominal dollar values each year.15 We do not project these values past the years available at the time of writing; as with the earnings values, they are defined as missing after 2012. Estimates include years with $0 earnings. It is important to keep in mind that all our earnings measures only serve as proxies for an individual's well-being and do not measure family supports, other government transfers, or other sources of income and support for which the individual may be eligible or have access to.
Recent research by Maestas, Mullen, and Strand (2013) used an instrumental variables approach to estimate a causal effect of the DI program on employment. They point out (along with Parsons 1991 and others) that Bound's approach could understate the potential employment effect if the application process itself (particularly the appeals process) is a factor in the reduction of an applicant's work capacity. Our study is also subject to this possibility; however, there are two reasons it may not be as strong an objection to the methodology on the exit margin presented here. First, we are primarily interested in a substantially smaller policy counterfactual. Whereas Bound, Parsons, and others have generally been interested in the role of DI on the reduction in male employment writ large, we are instead interested in the potential impact of an increase in the number of CDRs SSA conducts. As a result, we assume the current structure of the CDR selection process will by and large stay the same, with only marginal adjustments to the selected population—including a full appeals process to which beneficiaries will be eligible. A second, related factor mitigating this methodological concern is that our follow-up period is measured from the time of the final FMR decision, when beneficiaries no longer have a reason to hold down their earnings in the anticipation of eventual program receipt. Thus, this criticism is likely of much less importance to the exit margin we examine.
4 The target population: selection and characteristics
The target population in this paper comprises adult DI worker beneficiaries who underwent an FMR between 1998 and 2008. It is important to note that this specific population is not representative of the entire CDR population in any given year or the population of current DI beneficiaries at any given point. Only 21.5 % of DI workers selected for a CDR undergo an FMR (SSA 2013a). We include concurrent beneficiaries (i.e., beneficiaries who receive both DI and SSI) in our analyses.
We exclude beneficiaries who (1) are missing a final decision date or profile score; (2) have inconsistent dates (such as a date of eligibility prior to a date of birth); (3) died before receiving the final decision; (4) have appealed a cessation decision and are awaiting a new decision or still have time to appeal their cessation; (5) received a final decision after 2009; or (6) are in one of three age groups: under age 18 at the time of the initial decision, age 60 or older at the time of the initial decision, or age 62 or older at the time of the final decision. We also exclude (7) FMRs that are not the first FMR for members of our sample. Restrictions (5) and (6) ensure that we have only adults and adequate follow-up time, to avoid issues with early retirement.16 We impose restriction (7) to avoid overlap between two FMRs. These exclusions lead to a target population of 2,124,835 DI workers with each person only appearing at most once.
4.1 DI worker beneficiary characteristics
Personal characteristics, percentage distribution by FMR outcome, and final cessation rate for DI workers
Continued (%)
Ceased (%)
Cessation rate (row %)
Age at initial FMR decision
18 to 30
30 to 39
40 to 49
50 to 59
Primary diagnosis
Infectious and parasitic diseases
Endocrine, nutritional, and metabolic diseases
Blood and blood-forming organs diseases
Other mental disorders
Schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders
Intellectual disabilities
Nervous system and sense organs diseases
Circulatory system diseases
Respiratory system diseases
Digestive system diseases
Genitourinary system diseases
Skin and subcutaneous tissue diseases
Musculoskeletal system and connective tissue diseases
Congenital anomalies
The final cessation rate, accounting for all appeals through the time of data extraction, is 5.7 % for DI workers, although this rate varies greatly within some characteristic groups. We find notably higher cessation rates among younger beneficiaries in our population. For example, DI workers age 18 to 30 have a 13 % cessation rate compared to less than 3 % for workers age 50 to 59. This can also be seen in the age distribution of the continued and ceased groups, where the ceased group has a much larger proportion of younger DI workers than the continued group. Some of the largest differences in cessation rates occur within primary diagnosis categories. We see relatively high cessation rates for those with neoplasms (18 %), and diseases of the genitourinary system (13 %), and low cessation rates in the congenital anomalies and endocrine, nutritional, and metabolic systems diseases categories (less than 4 %). There may be substantial differences in the employment outcomes by these groups. Prior research has shown that the employment and earnings of beneficiaries vary greatly by impairment type (Mann et al. 2015). Additionally, there may be large differences within impairment groups, as younger beneficiaries have been shown to have better employment outcomes in general (Ben-Shalom and Mamun 2015). However, we do not hypothesize who will be more or less able to return to their prior field of employment or benefit more from existing support structures.
CDR characteristics, percentage distribution by FMR outcome, and final cessation rate for DI workers
Continued (%)
Ceased (%)
Cessation rate (row %)
CDR diary type
CDR release type
Direct release
CDR profile score
Year of initial FMR decision
5 Estimates of cessation impact on earnings outcomes
Predicted 5-year average earnings of DI workers before and after FMR
Impact (β)d
Mean pre-eligibility earnings ($)a
Mean post-FMR earnings ($)a
Ratio (2/1)
Any post-FMR earnings (%)
In all follow-up years
Percent with post-FMR earnings at or above
Pre-eligibility earningsb
In all follow-up years
Potential benefitb c
In all follow-up yearsc
In all follow-up years
In all follow-up years
Full-time minimum wageb
In all follow-up years
Controlling for other characteristics, we estimate that, in the 5 years after the FMR, former beneficiaries earn roughly $11,000 more (per year) than those continued on the program (Table 3). Almost 70 % of ceased beneficiaries have earnings during the 5 years after the FMR, compared to about a quarter of continued beneficiaries. All else equal, ceased beneficiaries are about 45 percentage points more likely than their continued peers to have earnings above SGA, the poverty level, or the full-time minimum wage in the 5 years after the FMR (over a predicted base rate of about 6–7 % for those continued). The estimated upper bound on the impact of a cessation on earnings above their potential benefit is also 45 percentage points; the impact on work activity above their pre-eligibility earnings is about 38 percentage points, all else equal.
Even though about half of ceased beneficiaries earned above the various earnings thresholds, few are able to maintain that level for all of the follow-up period. For example, only 37 % had earnings in all follow-up years, and only 20 % were able to maintain earnings above the annualized SGA level or the poverty threshold in the 5 years after program exit.
The aggregate statistics presented above mask the differential outcomes across a very heterogeneous target population. To provide context about how specific groups of ceased beneficiaries and recipients fare after the FMR, we present several of our earnings measures by various characteristics.17 We ran regressions similar to Eq. (1) for each group. The full set of outcomes and characteristics are available upon request.
Thus far, we have looked at the overall earnings experiences of those who undergo a FMR and the experiences of selected demographic groups. An important question, however, is what the outcomes might look like if SSA were to increase the number of FMRs it conducts. For simplicity, consider a situation where SSA receives additional funding for CDRs but does not fundamentally alter the selection process or CDR rules—i.e., SSA simply conducts more FMRs with the same system of triage.
One way to consider what would happen is to assume that SSA would conduct more FMRs on beneficiaries further down the scale of cessation likelihood. That is, more MIPs and MINEs would receive FMRs, as would more people with medium or low CDR profile scores. If we assume the individuals in these groups would be moved into the FMR pool, and assume no substantial changes in the composition of these groups, our observed outcomes for these groups can be viewed as a good proxy for what may be expected. This would be an upper bound, since those not currently receiving an FMR in these groups would likely be in poorer health. Additionally, more individuals who received mailers would instead be directly released for an FMR. To the extent that those shifted into the direct release pool would be individuals who would have only received a mailer otherwise, outcomes would likely move toward those of the current mailer group.
Predicted impacts on 5-year average earnings outcomes for DI workers by CDR characteristics
Mean post-FMR earnings ($)a
Any post-FMR earnings (%)a
Post-FMR earnings at or above
Pre-eligibility earningsb (%)
Potential benefitb (%)c
SGAb (%)
Povertyb (%)
Full-time min. wageb (%)
CDR release type
Direct release
CDR diary type
CDR profile score level
An alternative way to estimate the earnings outcomes of ceased beneficiaries under a policy of conducting additional CDRs is to compare outcomes across time periods when SSA had different levels of funding (Fig. 1). As the resources, staff, and funding available for FMRs varied over the study period, the post-FMR earnings outcomes have likely also varied. However, estimates on earnings outcomes are likely correlated with the overall economy and recent cohorts are likely substantially affected by the Great Recession. Without a way to differentiate between the effect of resources and the economy, we are unable to project any reasonable estimates of the pure effect of increased resources dedicated to CDRs.18
6 Discussion and conclusions
This paper presents estimated labor market outcomes for individuals ceased from disability program participation after FMRs and offers a glimpse of what might be expected if SSA increased the number of CDRs it conducts. Since our estimates are based on a specific segment of the CDR population, we caution the reader against drawing broad conclusions about implications for the entire CDR population. The majority of ceased beneficiaries have some earnings in the 5 years after a FMR cessation. If the Bound methodology holds, then the upper bound of potential effect on earnings for those on the exit margin is high—about 43 percentage points. However, earnings for ceased beneficiaries are generally low—average earnings for ceased DI workers are about $13,000, compared to a national average of about $44,000. About half earn at least as much as our definitions of their potential benefit, SGA, poverty, and the full-time minimum wage levels, but few maintain these levels of earnings for the entire follow-up period.
Bound's (1989) original study reported much lower employment for rejected male applicants in the 1970s (40–45 %) compared to our estimate for former beneficiaries (70 %).19 von Wachter et al. (2011) also find much smaller potential impacts than we find. Recent research has used variation in the disability determination process to estimate the impacts of DI on employment for various groups. For example, Maestas et al. (2013) were able to identify applicants on the entry margin of the program and predicted a 28 percentage point higher employment rate for that group if they had not received benefits. French and Song (2014) also find much smaller effects. While our data do not allow such an analysis, it is one potential area of future research, given the medical CDR process follows the initial decision process. Even considering varying methodologies, the differences between the entry and exit margins appear large and especially important as SSA increases its program integrity activity.
Our population is generally defined as those that SSA determined, a priori, to have a high likelihood of cessation because their impairments may no longer preclude SGA-level work. From that perspective, an upper bound of the impact of program exit on earnings of 40 to 50 percentage points could be viewed as small. Expanding program integrity operations (such as CDRs) may result in a lower a priori likelihood-of-cessation threshold used to target CDRs—more individuals that are less likely to be ceased would receive CDRs—leading to a higher rate of program return and lower average levels of work (measured by average earnings or earnings above the threshold measured in this paper) among those ceased. Previous work (Hemmeter and Stegman 2013) has found that about 20 % of former DI workers return to the program within 8 years. However, if SSA's CDR operations are currently underfunded, there may be a backlog of individuals who have medically improved but have not received a CDR in recent years. If these individuals are similar to those currently ceased, we could see somewhat similar outcomes with increased funding (at least until the backlog is eliminated).20
Increased program integrity, while appropriate for Social Security from a fiduciary perspective, may also increase the number of people requiring other supports. Overall, our findings imply that a substantial percentage of former beneficiaries are able to re-enter the labor force after their benefits cease; however, a not-inconsequential minority of those with earnings do not meet common thresholds of earnings sufficiency and are not able to maintain their earnings over time. Additionally, almost one quarter of former beneficiaries have no earnings after cessation, and few ceased individuals maintain employment above our measured earnings thresholds for the entire follow-up period. Given the high probability of return and the generally poor labor market outcomes of many ceased beneficiaries, analyses of the relationship between SSA's CDR policy and the broader social safety net may be in order. Others have shown that spousal employment, other government programs, and asset spend-down are ways some individuals cope with waiting for a DI award (Coe et al. 2014, Lindner 2013, Bound et al. 2003). Whether these sources of support are available after program cessation is unknown. Similarly, access to and use of health insurance has changed substantially in recent years. This may have improved individuals' health, resulting in an increased ability to work or willingness to work, and the impact of the Affordable Care Act on the employment of former beneficiaries is an important area for future research.
Because the eligibility thresholds for SSA's disability programs are strict, many of the individuals we study likely still have significant disabilities; our results do not provide any evidence on the broader health of these individuals. In exploratory analyses, we found that 53 % of ceased former beneficiaries who returned to the programs did so with a primary impairment in the same impairment category. Whether this is attributable to a new complication for the same body system (such as an original impairment of chronic bronchitis and a new impairment of emphysema both recorded as a respiratory impairment) or a relapse of the original condition (such as a recurrence of cancer) is not readily identifiable in our data. Additionally, any change in diagnosis upon return may not represent a new impairment since some secondary or unrecorded impairments may have become more expressed. That is, the condition was always present but was not reflected as the "primary" impairment in SSA records. Regardless, further research is needed to understand the health dynamics of ceased beneficiaries.
When SSA expanded CDRs in the early 1980s, there were many allegations of SSA terminating benefits for individuals with severe impairments that may not have improved or for individuals who had been receiving benefits for a long period, which "raise[d] questions about how and why these people [were] being terminated, and the fairness of SSA's decisions" (p. 5, Ahart 1982). This led to a moratorium on CDRs and eventually led to the medical improvement review standard and other long-lasting program rules (Government Accounting Office, 1986). Additionally, about two thirds of those whose benefits SSA terminated in the early 1980s expansion eventually returned to the program (Government Accounting Office, 1989). If SSA plans to expand CDRs again, it is important to do so in a manner that is both legal and equitable. This paper highlights one area for tracking the well-being of ceased beneficiaries—earnings; prior work (Hemmeter and Stegman 2013) suggests another—program return. Keeping track of these outcomes could alleviate public concerns about CDR policy.
For current beneficiaries, the fear of losing benefits may dampen any incentives to return to work. Although individuals can appeal a FMR cessation and may return to the program, a determination that these individuals no longer have a work-limiting disability may provide a greater incentive to attempt returning to work. Our results, and those of Hemmeter and Stegman (2013) and Hemmeter and Gilby (2009), suggest one additional potential area for research: whether supports are necessary, and if so which ones, to help individuals ceased because of a FMR return to work. Identifying these supports could lead to longer-term financial savings for SSA and achieve societal goals of self-sufficiency for individuals with disabilities.
Yearly awards for Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) worker benefits have more than doubled since the 1980s. The peak year of awards was 2010 with 1,026,988 DI worker awards. (Social Security Administration 2013b)
Maestas and Song (2011) and Maestas and Yin (2008) examined the employment effects of DI in the context of conversion to the Old Age and Survivors Insurance (retirement) part of Social Security. Their exit margin is substantially different in that there is no expectation of medical improvement and less societal pressure to work. It also represents a pure income effect compared to what we analyze, which is the overall effect of the DI program.
The DI program also provides benefits to children and spouses of worker beneficiaries under certain conditions. We do not include these beneficiaries, or their eligibility criteria, in our discussion and analysis.
While much attention has been paid to the DI program, relatively little attention is given to the SSI program. This is unfortunate as the two should not be, but often are, conflated (Berkowitz and DeWitt 2013). Since both programs share a common definition of disability and administrative processes, changes or calls for increased scrutiny of one often affect the other.
In FY 2008, the last year of our study population, about 90 % of initial decisions for DI workers were continuations. In the same year, 59 % of initial cessations for DI workers were appealed to the reconsideration level, with 70 % of those overturned. Additionally, about 79 % of DI workers with a cessation at the reconsideration level appealed in FY 2008; 49 % were successful. (SSA 2013a)
Diary dates for MIE cases are set for between 18 months and 3 years; MIP diaries are set for 3 years; MINE diaries are set for 7 years.
About 9 % of DI workers died during the 5-year follow-up period. In analyses not reported in the text, we limited the target population to those who survived the follow-up period; the results were very similar to those presented here.
Most legal earnings are now subject to the Social Security tax. Additionally, we expect few beneficiaries in our study to earn over the taxable maximum. In some cases, the earnings on an individual's record may reflect delayed earnings from prior work rather than for current work.
We set earnings after death to missing. The results are very similar when we set earnings after age 62 (early retirement) or subsequent SSI or DI participation to "missing" to reduce the effect of future program participation.
The loss of benefits may be seen by some as a loss of the potential support necessary to work. For example, there may be some individuals working below SGA using their benefits for car payments and other expenses necessary for work. This could, in theory, lead to a narrower earnings gap (or even a negative gap) between the ceased and continued individuals. However, the loss of benefits in this case would result in less work. Thus, our estimate of the earnings and employment levels of ceased beneficiaries would still be an upper bound, but the difference between the ceased and continued individuals would be biased. Because work by non-ceased individuals in our target population is uncommon, we do not think this substantially alters our hypotheses.
Covariates include pre-eligibility earnings quartile, release type, diary type, profile score level, age at CDR, time on program, primary impairment, race, sex, whether concurrently receiving SSI and DI, adjudicative level of original program entry, whether there were prior CDRs, whether a consultative examination was requested during the FMR, state of residence, and year of initial CDR.
We do not adjust the DI benefit amount by worker's compensation because in some states, DI is offset by worker's compensation and in other states, worker's compensation is offset by DI. We also do not adjust for automatic deductions for Medicare; doing so assumes similar deductions for health insurance in the labor market, which may not be realistic. The results are very similar when we subtract Medicare Part B premiums from the potential benefit (in 2013 the monthly premium for Part B was $104.90). The availability of similarly-valued (both in terms of objective price and subjective utility) may affect the types of employment our study population, who may still have high health costs, seeks or is able to find. We thank an anonymous referee for identifying this issue.
These annualized thresholds generally follow the same path. However, we note that the minimum wage measure is above the SGA and poverty thresholds in all years. Up until the early 2000s, SSA changed the SGA level sporadically, resulting in periods of declining real value. Similarly, the Federal minimum wage changes sporadically, losing real value for several years at a time. The poverty threshold has regularly been adjusted for the cost of living since its inception. In 2012, the last year of earnings data in our analysis, annualized SGA was $12,120; the poverty threshold was $11,170; the full-time Federal minimum wage was $15,080; and the potential FBR was $8,376.
In addition to the exclusions listed in the text, we also exclude the profile sample from our analyses due to the changing nature of the profile sample over time and because our intent is to present the outcomes for individuals who go through the "usual" CDR process, not the process used to validate the CDR process.
How the local economic environment affects outcomes likely plays an important factor in the re-entry of these individuals into the labor force. Unfortunately, we are unable to determine where individuals live after the year of the FMR. While many likely remain in the same area, there is no good source of information on former beneficiary migration.
Simple bivariate regressions between the funding level (in millions) for a fiscal year and the percent of that calendar year's ceased beneficiaries with earnings above the various thresholds in any year surprisingly yield significantly positive, although tiny, coefficients. However, we note that this very simple analysis does not control for other factors, including fluctuating economic conditions.
Our estimated impacts for males and females are not substantially different.
The Congressional Budget Office (2011) estimates a marginal return on investment of only about $3 for every $1 SSA spends on CDRs above current expenditures, which is consistent with the expectation that additional CDRs will result in fewer people remaining off the program (and SSI, Medicare, or Medicaid).
The authors thank the following people for the comments on early versions of this paper: Alexander Strand, Manasi Deshpande, Bob Somers, Michael Stephens, L. Scott Muller, Ray Wise, anonymous referees, and the editor. The authors would like to thank Ben Pitkin for the editorial assistance. The findings and conclusions presented in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Social Security Administration.
Responsible editor: David Neumark
Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
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text:
Before I start the whole blog thing, I think it's important to share some history in order to ground all my readers on some past and present events in my life. I think this knowledge will help form a solid starting point for the blog going forward. If you've read the About Me page or my initial Welcome post, you already know I'm using this site as a place to write and share my travel experiences. You may also know that I plan on traveling around the world for five months beginning in the middle of June (I think the post with my itinerary gave that away). To put a little context around that five month trip and why I'm doing it, let's start with the present and work backwards….
I am a single, 31 year old regular joe schmo guy who happens to also be unemployed and living with my parents (both of my own volition and the reason I have five months of free time to travel). Before you start thinking I'm some lazy deadbeat loser or the lazy deadbeat loser son of some wealthy business mogul, let me add that I have: a masters degree, ten years work experience, I own a struggling internet start-up that's all but dead, and neither I nor my parents (who are retired) are remotely close to being considered wealthy. And yet I have the resources to make planning a five month trip around the world reality.
Confused yet? Let's take a look back in time to help explain my current situation….
On February 23, 2012 I walked into my performance review and quit my job at a Fortune 100 pharmaceutical company (although I worked on the nutrition side and our baby formula products). There wasn't a new job or a new company waiting for me. I was burnt out and felt like my life in general had stagnated. I know everyone hates their job and feels disillusioned from time to time but this was different. You see, I had decided to leave my company two-and-a-half years earlier. Think about that for a moment. For over two years I had been working a job for a company that I no longer really cared about – other than the fact that I got paid. I had finally decided to make a change and get out of the rut I was stuck in, even if it was somewhat drastic. Some of you reading this are probably thinking I did this to myself, that I should have left long before February 23, 2012 if I was oh so unhappy. But you see, it's more complicated than you think.
In the fall of 2008 I absolutely loved my life. I lived just outside Boston, MA – a city I loved unconditionally and still consider my second home to this day. I had just finished my first term of business school at Duke University (it was an executive program so I was able to live and work in Boston while attending classes both at Duke and via the internet). I had a great group of friends, roommates, and co-workers. I was able to travel around the US and the world regularly for work, school, and vacation. And, while it had changed and I had been in the same position for almost four years, I enjoyed my job as a sales analyst and supporting the sales region that was based out of the area.
All it took was one phone call for everything to change. My new manager was based out of our home office in Columbus, OH (all part of the changes that had recently occurred) and he called me with an interesting proposition – he had gained approval to create a new position and he wanted to know if I was interested in interviewing for it. The only catch? The position would be based in Columbus. By December I had been formally offered the position and I had accepted. If I absolutely loved my life in Boston, why would I even consider leaving? Well, let's dig a little deeper….
I graduated from The Ohio State University in 2002 with no real clue as to what I wanted to do with my newly minted business degree. All I did know is that I didn't want to move back home to Atlanta, GA and live with my parents while I looked for a job (kind of ironic considering my current situation, eh?). I enjoyed my independence and I had a paid internship that would last for another 8 months. Fast forward to 2004. I held a contract position with the Pharma company as an analyst in the Marketing department. After being exposed to Marketing and product management, I decided brand management was what I wanted to do with my life. I interviewed for an associate brand manager position in my group, but I was not offered the position in part because I didn't have an MBA or enough experience (hence why I would later got to business school).
So, going back to the original question – why would I leave a life I absolutely loved in Boston for a new position in Columbus, OH? Well I went to college in Columbus and still had quite a few friends in the area, plus the new position was in Marketing and provided a path for me to move into a brand management role that I had long coveted. It seemed like a great opportunity, I could move closer to college friends, tailgate and go to Ohio State football games in the fall (don't laugh, our tailgate is kind of a big deal in those parts), and I could continue to pursue my dream career.
What seemed good in theory ended up being a disaster. While being around my college friends and being in Columbus during football season was awesome, football season only lasts three months and it only took about six months for me to decide I wanted to leave my job. That's right, six months into my supposed dream job I was ready to jump ship and start over. How did it get to that point so quickly?
Like anything in life, it's complicated. I was homesick for Boston, the exposure I gained to other people and their careers while at Duke made me realize there might be other things I would like to pursue besides brand management, I came to the realization that I didn't want sell baby formula the rest of my life, and, due to circumstances outside of anyone's control, I didn't think I was being given a fair chance to succeed at my new position (and the door to a brand management position was slammed shut for various reasons six months later). Add it all up and I didn't see the point in staying someplace where I didn't see myself having a future.
So, why did it take two-and-a-half years for me to finally leave (especially since I wasn't going to get that dream Marketing job)? I could write another couple pages on that topic, but I'll spare you the details and say there were two main reasons. First, my company paid for me to relocate from Boston to Columbus, and I would have to pay them back if I left within two years (which means I couldn't leave for free until the beginning of 2011). Second, a friend and I decided to start our own business during the summer of 2010. That business would be located in Columbus, OH with a target launch date of September 1, 2011. So, once I didn't have to worry about repaying my relocation expenses we were only 6-9 months away from our anticipated launch date.
I did look, and on occasion interviewed, for a new position, but thanks to the Great Recession I never found anything that I thought would be worth either the financial penalty of paying back my relocation expenses or giving up a relatively easy job that allowed me to focus on starting my company. With that in mind I had decided that my company would be my ticket out by early 2011. We had a great concept, had some very talented people working with us, and we had enough connections in the Columbus area to make the company a success (for proprietary reasons I won't detail what the concept is, but it has some pretty good potential to become successful at least regionally).
However, if you couldn't guess from the second paragraph of this post, we missed that September 1 launch date and we aren't much closer to launching today. There are a variety of reasons we haven't been able to get off the ground, but the root cause has been a lack of IT programmers and an over confidence that we could launch our product while short staffed. This over confidence coupled with the missed launch date has caused our finances to drain away (which tends to happen when you anticipate covering pre launch expenses with future revenues that fail to materialize). Anyway, as it became clear that we weren't going to be able to pay for additional staff or programming help, I began to realize that I couldn't wait for my company's launch to save me from my stalled out Pharma career.
In early January I used Duke's alumni resources to work with a career counselor on updating my resume, developing job search strategies, and coming up with a plan for where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. I broached the subject of quitting my job and traveling around the world, and my counselor assured me that personal sabbaticals weren't completely uncommon these days – although there were still risks to consider. As the date for my performance review neared I realized it was the day before I would have quit if my company had successfully launched. Since I had the money saved up to quit anyway it seemed like the perfect opportunity to take a break (think about it – I segued straight from business school to starting my own company, which means I'd been essentially working two full time jobs for almost four years), do some traveling, and start fresh in a new city with a new career when I returned.
And that folks is the long way of explaining how I became a 31 year old regular joe schmo who happens to be unemployed. Since this post is already quite long, and most people have probably fallen asleep while reading this, I'll save explaining the whole living with my parents thing and why I decided to travel for five months for next time.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Serves: Two
Time: Approximately 30 minutes
Some people have a hard time thinking of salad as a main dish, but this one fits the bill. With tuna's protein and healthy fats, raspberries' big fiber supply, and romaine's impressive supply of vitamins A, K and C, this tuna and raspberry salad is a nutritious, filling meal that looks like a restaurant dish but takes only about 30 minutes from start to finish (including the time to marinate)!
This recipe serves two and calls for raspberry vinegar, which you can find not only in specialty stores but also in most regular supermarkets. (If you want to make your own, though, go for it!)
Here we go:
- 1/2 cup fat-free ranch salad dressing
- 1/4 cup raspberry vinegar
- 11/2 teaspoons Cajun seasoning
- 1 thick-sliced tuna steak (about 6 to 8 ounces)
- 2 cups torn romaine lettuce leaves
- 1 cup torn mixed baby lettuce leaves
- 1/2 cup fresh raspberries
Combine salad dressing, vinegar and Cajun seasoning. Pour 1/4 cup salad dressing mixture into resealable food storage bag to use as marinade; reserve the remaining dressing mixture. Add tuna to the marinade; seal bag and turn to coat tuna. Marinate in refrigerator 10 minutes, turning once.
Preheat broiler. Spray the rack of the broiler pan with nonstick cooking spray. Place tuna on rack. Broil tuna 4 inches from heat for 5 minutes. Turn tuna and brush with marinade; discard remaining marinade. Broil 5 minutes more or until the center of the steaks flake when tested with a fork. Cool 5 minutes. Cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices.
Toss lettuce varieties together in large bowl; divide evenly between two serving plates. Top with tuna and raspberries; drizzle with reserved salad dressing mixture.
Serve with fresh, whole-grain bread, warmed in the oven on low heat for about 5 minutes before you sit down to eat.
Next, a quick fix for a romantic night in.


text:
I want to make my own ribbons to hang my canvas nursery letters!
There might be a better way to do this (I can only call them "ribbons" in good conscience), but I am only a novice sewer... ewww... ummm... seamstress!
I figured the easiest DIY ribbon would simply be a wider version of a fabric tie (like the kind made for chair pads).
Here's what I did...
1. Cut fabric into strips
Mine were 2½" x 17". These made ⅝" wide "ribbons".
2. Fold edges in
so they meet in the center. Then fold in half. Iron flat.
3. Sew along the edge
They work great as simple ribbons for hanging my canvases.
I didn't bother to finish the ends (I just stapled them to the back of the canvas!)
Tomorrow I'll show you how I made and installed those cute knobs for the wall hanging. It was easy peasy!
I'm linking this post up with


text:
On the 11th October Vision TKD sent a team of 28 competitors, supporters and coaches to the ITF World Cup in Budapest, Hungary. After arriving in Hungary the team made their way straight to the weigh in and registration. It was a long day of travelling so all the competitors were very happy to have made their weight categories without issue. The team then went back to the hotel for dinner, a team meeting and an early night.
On the Wednesday the competition started and it was a full day of patterns. Despite nearly all the team competing it was a tough day with only Mr Arroyo, Thicome Biron-Monnier and Ellena Lobley progressing through a few rounds. Just when the team were starting to look deflated after no medals Mr Arroyo made his way into the 4-6th degree patterns final and secured a silver medal.
On the second day of competition the team were a bit more fired up as there was a lot of sparring happening and that is what most of the competitors had come for. We were not disappointed as Mike Rutherford fought bravely despite hardly being able to walk on his injured ankle and got a bronze medal. Then later in the same day Lee Higgins had some excellent fights to also secure a bronze medal. Although not winning any medals James Troughton, Izzie Eason Warner and Ellena Lobley all put in some great performances getting through the rounds and narrowly missed out on finishing on the podium.
The Friday was perhaps our toughest day as we had lots of black belts sparring and colour belt special technique and the categories were very tough. Despite some good performances we came away with no medals and some bruised bodies.
The Saturday was another tough day as it was all special technique and not the teams strong point. However, Mr Thompson kept things interesting for the spectators by making his way through the rounds and only just missed out on a medal, finishing 4th in the play off. Izzie Eason Warner turned the teams morale arounds with a great performance, securing the silver medal in special technique. To keep the squad motivated we got back to the hotel earlier and organised some better food for the team, making it a fun evening for all.
As 95% of the squad had finished competing the coaches offered the team a later start on the final day and making it optional to come and support the 3 coaches who were the only people with competition events. It was great to see everyone turn up early and support the coaches who had worked tirelessly all week. Mr Edmunds completed the day with some smashing stuff to get the silver medal.
Although it was not the biggest medal haul the team was a very inexperienced squad who will have all learned a lot from their first major international.
Many thanks to the Umpire's from the association, Master Chesterman, Mr Lear and Mr Bourne who worked very hard all week to make the competition possible.
Also, many thanks to the coaching staff, Mr Dunn, Mr Adams, Mr Thompson, Mr Arroyo and Mr Edmunds who not only worked hard all week but also put in the hours behind the scenes organising squad sessions, transport, hotels, meals, equipment etc
And lastly, special thanks to the supporters who came along and kept the team going all week even when things were not going our way. Well done everyone.
Check out the photos here.


text: At more than 6,000 words, there was a lot in tonight's State of the Union. The bulk of it was a vision of what American economic policy should be pointed towards in the years to come: A country that has a better educated workforce, a more sophisticated infrastructure, and a more innovative economy than any other. A country where the public sector has an acknowledged and crucial role in supporting the private sector. But vision is there to support policy. And though there were a lot of policy proposals in the speech, there weren't enough specifics to really know where the president is going.For all the talk of investment, it was presented more as a philosophy than a proposal. The president expressed his intention to invest in "biomedical research, information technology, and especially clean energy technology," but no dollar amounts were discussed. He set a goal of producing 80 percent of America's energy from renewables by 2035, which has impressed many in the clean energy community as being laudably ambitious. But whether that goal will have sufficient research funding or serious enforcement mechanisms behind it remains to be seen.Infrastructure investment also got some goals -- giving 80% of Americans access to high-speed rail, and 98 percent of Americans access to high-speed internet -- but no numbers. And so too for education, where the president extolled the 'Race to the Top' program as the future of education reform, but offered few specifics for what that meant. Twice as much money? The same amount of money? In contrast, the proposals for deficit reduction were relatively specific. The president proposed to "freeze annual domestic spending for the next five years," which "would reduce the deficit by more than $400 billion over the next decade." He also called for the expiration of the Bush tax cuts for income over $250,000. The president could've been similarly specific on the other side of the ledger. He could've said, for instance, that for every three dollars we cut, one will be invested in our future. Or that following the recommendations of the CEO-led Council on Energy Innovation, we should invest $16 billion annually in clean energy research. But he didn't.The White House says more numbers will be forthcoming in their 2012 budget. That's undoubtedly true. But until then, it's hard to say what the president really means when he talks about investment, because we don't know how much investment he's proposing that we do -- nor where the money will come from.What follows is the text of the president's speech, edited down to the specific positions, proposals and requests, and sorted by issue area:Research and Development:Two years ago, I said that we needed to reach a level of research and development we haven't seen since the height of the Space Race. In a few weeks, I will be sending a budget to Congress that helps us meet that goal. We'll invest in biomedical research, information technology, and especially clean energy technology – an investment that will strengthen our security, protect our planet, and create countless new jobs for our people.Energy:I'm asking Congress to eliminate the billions in taxpayer dollars we currently give to oil companies. I don't know if you've noticed, but they're doing just fine on their own. So instead of subsidizing yesterday's energy, let's invest in tomorrow's.Now, clean energy breakthroughs will only translate into clean energy jobs if businesses know there will be a market for what they're selling. So tonight, I challenge you to join me in setting a new goal: by 2035, 80% of America's electricity will come from clean energy sources. Some folks want wind and solar. Others want nuclear, clean coal, and natural gas. To meet this goal, we will need them all – and I urge Democrats and Republicans to work together to make it happen.Education:Race to the Top is the most meaningful reform of our public schools in a generation. For less than one percent of what we spend on education each year, it has led over 40 states to raise their standards for teaching and learning. These standards were developed, not by Washington, but by Republican and Democratic governors throughout the country. And Race to the Top should be the approach we follow this year as we replace No Child Left Behind with a law that is more flexible and focused on what's best for our kids.[...]Of course, the education race doesn't end with a high school diploma. To compete, higher education must be within reach of every American. That's why we've ended the unwarranted taxpayer subsidies that went to banks, and used the savings to make college affordable for millions of students. And this year, I ask Congress to go further, and make permanent our tuition tax credit – worth $10,000 for four years of college.[...]One last point about education. Today, there are hundreds of thousands of students excelling in our schools who are not American citizens. Some are the children of undocumented workers, who had nothing to do with the actions of their parents. They grew up as Americans and pledge allegiance to our flag, and yet live every day with the threat of deportation. Others come here from abroad to study in our colleges and universities. But as soon as they obtain advanced degrees, we send them back home to compete against us. It makes no sense.Now, I strongly believe that we should take on, once and for all, the issue of illegal immigration. I am prepared to work with Republicans and Democrats to protect our borders, enforce our laws and address the millions of undocumented workers who are now living in the shadows. I know that debate will be difficult and take time. But tonight, let's agree to make that effort. And let's stop expelling talented, responsible young people who can staff our research labs, start new businesses, and further enrich this nation.Infrastructure:Over the last two years, we have begun rebuilding for the 21st century, a project that has meant thousands of good jobs for the hard-hit construction industry. Tonight, I'm proposing that we redouble these efforts.We will put more Americans to work repairing crumbling roads and bridges. We will make sure this is fully paid for, attract private investment, and pick projects based on what's best for the economy, not politicians.Within 25 years, our goal is to give 80% of Americans access to high-speed rail, which could allow you go places in half the time it takes to travel by car. For some trips, it will be faster than flying – without the pat-down. As we speak, routes in California and the Midwest are already underway.Within the next five years, we will make it possible for business to deploy the next generation of high-speed wireless coverage to 98% of all Americans. This isn't just about a faster internet and fewer dropped calls. It's about connecting every part of America to the digital age. It's about a rural community in Iowa or Alabama where farmers and small business owners will be able to sell their products all over the world. It's about a firefighter who can download the design of a burning building onto a handheld device; a student who can take classes with a digital textbook; or a patient who can have face-to-face video chats with her doctor.Health care:Now, I've heard rumors that a few of you have some concerns about the new health care law. So let me be the first to say that anything can be improved. If you have ideas about how to improve this law by making care better or more affordable, I am eager to work with you. We can start right now by correcting a flaw in the legislation that has placed an unnecessary bookkeeping burden on small businesses.What I'm not willing to do is go back to the days when insurance companies could deny someone coverage because of a pre-existing condition. I'm not willing to tell James Howard, a brain cancer patient from Texas, that his treatment might not be covered. I'm not willing to tell Jim Houser, a small business owner from Oregon, that he has to go back to paying $5,000 more to cover his employees. As we speak, this law is making prescription drugs cheaper for seniors and giving uninsured students a chance to stay on their parents' coverage. So instead of re-fighting the battles of the last two years, let's fix what needs fixing and move forward.Taxes:Over the years, a parade of lobbyists has rigged the tax code to benefit particular companies and industries. Those with accountants or lawyers to work the system can end up paying no taxes at all. But all the rest are hit with one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. It makes no sense, and it has to change.So tonight, I'm asking Democrats and Republicans to simplify the system. Get rid of the loopholes. Level the playing field. And use the savings to lower the corporate tax rate for the first time in 25 years – without adding to our deficit.[...]The best thing we could do on taxes for all Americans is to simplify the individual tax code. This will be a tough job, but members of both parties have expressed interest in doing this, and I am prepared to join them.Trade:Before I took office, I made it clear that we would enforce our trade agreements, and that I would only sign deals that keep faith with American workers, and promote American jobs. That's what we did with Korea, and that's what I intend to do as we pursue agreements with Panama and Colombia, and continue our Asia Pacific and global trade talks.The deficit:So tonight, I am proposing that starting this year, we freeze annual domestic spending for the next five years. This would reduce the deficit by more than $400 billion over the next decade, and will bring discretionary spending to the lowest share of our economy since Dwight Eisenhower was president.This freeze will require painful cuts. Already, we have frozen the salaries of hardworking federal employees for the next two years. I've proposed cuts to things I care deeply about, like community action programs. The Secretary of Defense has also agreed to cut tens of billions of dollars in spending that he and his generals believe our military can do without.[...]Now, most of the cuts and savings I've proposed only address annual domestic spending, which represents a little more than 12% of our budget. To make further progress, we have to stop pretending that cutting this kind of spending alone will be enough. It won't.The bipartisan Fiscal Commission I created last year made this crystal clear. I don't agree with all their proposals, but they made important progress. And their conclusion is that the only way to tackle our deficit is to cut excessive spending wherever we find it – in domestic spending, defense spending, health care spending, and spending through tax breaks and loopholes.This means further reducing health care costs, including programs like Medicare and Medicaid, which are the single biggest contributor to our long-term deficit. Health insurance reform will slow these rising costs, which is part of why nonpartisan economists have said that repealing the health care law would add a quarter of a trillion dollars to our deficit. Still, I'm willing to look at other ideas to bring down costs, including one that Republicans suggested last year: medical malpractice reform to rein in frivolous lawsuits.To put us on solid ground, we should also find a bipartisan solution to strengthen Social Security for future generations. And we must do it without putting at risk current retirees, the most vulnerable, or people with disabilities; without slashing benefits for future generations; and without subjecting Americans' guaranteed retirement income to the whims of the stock market.And if we truly care about our deficit, we simply cannot afford a permanent extension of the tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% of Americans. Before we take money away from our schools, or scholarships away from our students, we should ask millionaires to give up their tax break.Government reform:To reduce barriers to growth and investment, I've ordered a review of government regulations. When we find rules that put an unnecessary burden on businesses, we will fix them. But I will not hesitate to create or enforce commonsense safeguards to protect the American people. That's what we've done in this country for more than a century. It's why our food is safe to eat, our water is safe to drink, and our air is safe to breathe. It's why we have speed limits and child labor laws. It's why last year, we put in place consumer protections against hidden fees and penalties by credit card companies, and new rules to prevent another financial crisis. And it's why we passed reform that finally prevents the health insurance industry from exploiting patients.[...]In the coming months, my administration will develop a proposal to merge, consolidate, and reorganize the federal government in a way that best serves the goal of a more competitive America. I will submit that proposal to Congress for a vote – and we will push to get it passed.In the coming year, we will also work to rebuild people's faith in the institution of government. Because you deserve to know exactly how and where your tax dollars are being spent, you will be able to go to a website and get that information for the very first time in history. Because you deserve to know when your elected officials are meeting with lobbyists, I ask Congress to do what the White House has already done: put that information online. And because the American people deserve to know that special interests aren't larding up legislation with pet projects, both parties in Congress should know this: if a bill comes to my desk with earmarks inside, I will veto it.[...]Afghanistan:Thanks to our heroic troops and civilians, fewer Afghans are under the control of the insurgency. There will be tough fighting ahead, and the Afghan government will need to deliver better governance. But we are strengthening the capacity of the Afghan people and building an enduring partnership with them. This year, we will work with nearly 50 countries to begin a transition to an Afghan lead. And this July, we will begin to bring our troops home.Veteran's affairs:Tonight, let us speak with one voice in reaffirming that our nation is united in support of our troops and their families. Let us serve them as well as they have served us – by giving them the equipment they need; by providing them with the care and benefits they have earned; and by enlisting our veterans in the great task of building our own nation.Our troops come from every corner of this country – they are black, white, Latino, Asian and Native American. They are Christian and Hindu, Jewish and Muslim. And, yes, we know that some of them are gay. Starting this year, no American will be forbidden from serving the country they love because of who they love. And with that change, I call on all of our college campuses to open their doors to our military recruiters and the ROTC. It is time to leave behind the divisive battles of the past. It is time to move forward as one nation.By Ezra Klein, THE WASHINGTON POST


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News & reviews for the fiction lover in us all!
One Last First Date (Cozy Cottage Cafe #1)
ROMANTIC COMEDY: Cassie Dunhill has had her life planned out since she was young. She and her two best friends, Paige and Marissa, make a pact on the beach that their next date will be the man they marry. Cassie has been avoiding Parker Hamilton for six months, but in her heart he's THE ONE, and she finally accepts his invitation to an evening out. After the beach pact with her friends, she has absolutely no doubt that they will be husband and wife in the very near future.
Will Jordan is Cassie's annoying co-worker. Everything about him bothers her, and she hates the nickname he has given her. She has her eye on a promotion at work, and Will is vying for the same position. However, he has a leg up since he has the highest sales in the company. When they are forced to work together on a project, Cassie begins to see that he isn't as annoying as she thought. Not only that, why is it that he pops into her mind at the most inappropriate times, especially when she is with Parker?
"One Last First Date" is a cute, sweet romantic comedy. Written from Cassie's point of view, it is done fairly well. There isn't a whole lot of chemistry between the characters, which is disappointing, and the ending feels rushed. The friendship between Cassie, Paige and Marissa is the best part of the story and better than the romance. While on the predictable side, this book is a "sit on the beach with a Mai Tai" read….just don't make a pact while there!
Lynne Bryant


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NAME: Natasha BudovitchAGE: 21HOMETOWN: Halifax, Nova Scotia SCHOOL: Ryerson University, Bachelor of Fashion Communications One day I was at my computer while at school, and I saw an email from our schools councilors saying...
HOMETOWN: Halifax, Nova Scotia
SCHOOL: Ryerson University, Bachelor of Fashion Communications
One day I was at my computer while at school, and I saw an email from our schools councilors saying that Teen Vogue in New York City was looking for interns for the summer. I thought for a minute, wow everyone is going to apply for that, for a split second I thought, no way would that ever happen to me...two seconds later I feel myself pressing that "send" button on my email well "here it goes," I thought.
I did it. I applied. The day I got my call I couldn't believe it, Blake made my life with that call. Blake asked me to come to New York for an interview. Lets just say I had no birth certificate, no passport and I have never been to New York in my life, but I said "Sure, I'll be there on Thursday afternoon." Come on it's Teen Vogue --who says NO to that! If it was physically possible I was going to get there and so I took a crazy bus (Yes an 11 hour, boarder patrolled, sadly-non-ventilated bus) through the dead of night from Toronto to New York that Wednesday and made it.
Working for Teen Vogue is really a life altering experience, over the course of the past 3 months I have learned so much and have had the pleasure of meeting so many interesting people. The best part of working in the closet is not just the walls of designer shoes, drawers of belts, shelves of hats and trays of sparkle sparkle bling bling, but it's the incredible international and local friendships that are created. Though our day to day teamwork you really become a little _Teen Vogue _family. The girls here really are my family away from home.
I believe that Teen Vogue molds the young ladies of tomorrow through fashion and promoting health and inspiring role models and I am so happy to be a part of such an influence. I would encourage any one from any walk of life to apply for an internship at Teen Vogue, If you want something in life you need to go for it, don't wait for it to come to you. Always remember dreams are bigger then we are, so never stop dreaming.


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The power of enterprise Java is now available through the expressiveness of Ruby. More and more projects are suited to new technologies and frameworks such as Ruby on Rails. Using TorqueBox, a team's members can leverage their knowledge, investments, skills, and trust in Java while exploring the cutting edge of new development models.
TorqueBox supports any Rack-based web framework, including Ruby on Rails and Sinatra. Rubyists now get high-performance Java services like HornetQ, Infinispan, and Quartz using familiar idioms and patterns. In this session, Bob McWhirter will cover general Ruby web-framework support and introduce the use of enterprise JBoss services with only a few lines of Ruby.
As a core member of the TorqueBox team at Red Hat, Toby Crawley helps drive the
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cloud technologies using Ruby before moving to work on TorqueBox full-time.
Prior to joining Red Hat, Toby served as a freelance consultant, where he spent
over three years developing Ruby applications. He also worked at Netscape on their
proxy server product in the distant past. He is one of the organizers of the
Asheville Ruby users group.


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Sad Nights
Michael Wood
- The Conquest of Mexico by Hugh Thomas
Hutchinson, 832 pp, £25.00, October 1993, ISBN 0 671 70518 0
- The Conquest of Mexico by Serge Gruzinski, translated by Eileen Corrigan
Polity, 336 pp, £45.00, July 1993, ISBN 0 7456 0873 6
One of the strangest recurring moments in the Spanish invasion of the Americas was the reading of the Requerimiento, the Requisition, a document which both proclaimed possession of a territory and converted its natives into subjects of the Spanish Crown; all resistance, therefore, could be called rebellion. The natives were supposed to be present at the reading, although it seems they weren't always. Even when they were, of course, they would have no way of grasping the language or even the gist of the proclamation. What was needed was that the words should be spoken, not that they should be understood; and the person who always was present was a notary. Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, the defender of the American Indians, said in the 16th century that he didn't know whether to laugh or to cry at the procedure, and two Colombian Indians are reported by Hugh Thomas as saying, in 1515, that the Pope must have been drunk when he divided between the Spanish and the Portuguese so much land which wasn't his to give.
The procedure was not simply absurd, however. Or even 'at once ridiculous and touching', as Thomas says of another legal fiction with which the Spaniards cloaked an act of power. It was cynical and formalist, but it also had an eye on history, on the future justification of deeds fell to be dubious: it satisfied a need for ritual and it created a record. It provided prospective conquerors with a mythology of conquest, which was doubly useful in that the absurdity of its application could simultaneously be acknowledged (and was, contemporary accounts seem to suggest) and ignored. What is striking, to weary modern eyes, is not that the Conquistadors should have resorted to such a transparent near-hoax, but that, they should have bothered with international law at all.
Stephen Greenblatt, in Marvellous Possessions, makes a similar suggestion about Columbus's remark that he was not contradicted – 'y no me fué contradicho' – when he took possession of a series of Caribbean islands in the name of the Spanish king. How could he have been contradicted, if no one understood what he was saying? Yet the claim is not void, it is an intricate legalism – as if we were to declare that silence is consent when we have gagged everyone who could speak. Again, the curious feature is not the gag but the invocation of the law. I'm not sure there is 'an ethical reservation' here, as Greenblatt suggests; but there is an odd loyally to a certain story of justice, a need to bend the story to the practice rather than simply abandon it.
There are many such moves in the Spanish conquest of Mexico. A legal culture encounters a ceremonial one. They misunderstand each other, actually talk past each other; but they share many assumptions, and they both deal in elaborate fictions, where courtesy, tactics, self-deception and opportunism become inextricably entangled. Did Montezuma, the ruler if the Mexica of ancient Tenochtitlán, actually declare his allegiance to the Spanish Crown, or did Cortés just say he did? Did Cortés take Mexican courtesy for European subservience? Was there an error of translation, a muddle between 'vassal' and 'friend', not clearly distinguished, apparently, in the language of the Mexica? Thomas shrewdly suggests that Montezuma may have made something like a mistake in chess: a ceremonial gesture of extreme politeness, which Cortés understood as such but deliberately took, when it suited him, as a legal commitment.
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Vol. 16 No. 10 · 26 May 1994 » Michael Wood » Sad Nights
pages 16-17 | 2462 words


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The state of Hawaii requested emergency court docket intervention on Wednesday to halt a revised govt order from President Donald Trump inserting U.S. entry restrictions on refugees and travelers from six Muslim-majority international locations. Travelers have been handled otherwise at completely different factors of entry and immigration legal professionals suggested purchasers to alter their vacation spot to the more lenient airports, said Houston immigration lawyer Mana Yegani. Taking a bit of extra time to get ready earlier than you travel puts you manner forward of the headache game.
The place of accommodation turns into the first thing for many travelers when planning for his or her holidays. Minimize surprises by telling the child what to expect, or make a travel e-book" with footage of various parts of the journey, including waiting durations which may be taxing. If you are traveling with a child, you'll be able to't expect each place you go, especially in case you are staying with family and friends, to return geared up with a crib, so bringing alongside a baby travel bed can be a actual lifesaver.
Unbiased travelers aren't usually in search of consolation, they're making an attempt to stretch their price range as far as doable. It may be expanded and became a fundamental … Travel More


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After my latest blog entry, I realized that I forgot to include a few photos of these beauties. There are habanero peppers on the left, red bell peppers on the right and brown turkey figs below. Yum!
Blooms I'm diggin' right how include Mexican heather, marigolds, bougainvillea and queen's heart.
My marigolds have done so well, I wish I had planted several pots to display on my porch for fall instead of purchasing very expensive mums.
And this post would not be complete without a shot of my assistant photographer T-Roy.
Happy Gardening!


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Hidden Gem: Primary ElementAugust 19th, 2010 by @E_Wish1 | Hidden Gem, Hip-Hop/Rap, Miscellaneous, Music Video |
Many of you probably have not heard of Primary Element. This unsigned hip-hop group from Silver Spring, Maryland consists of rappers Mike Wallz as well as Stan and Steve Spottswood. Check out the official music video of their single "Go Get It" in addition to their song "Hello World" by this up-and-coming hip-hop group.


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Brit Beauty oil
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How to use:
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