Summary

Little one purposes and awards for Supplemental Safety Earnings (SSI) fell sharply on the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic.  Cumulative purposes from April to September 2020 have been about 30 % decrease than purposes over the identical interval in 2019.  But the decline assorted considerably throughout native areas.  On this paper, we discover the elements correlated with the change in purposes and awards at the start of the pandemic.

The paper discovered that:

• The restriction of in-person companies in any respect Social Safety Administration (SSA) discipline workplaces in March 2020 performed an vital position in modifications in SSI purposes; counties with their very own discipline workplaces, the place the change in service availability is largest, skilled bigger declines.
• The pandemic’s myriad disruptions to social and repair networks by which individuals might study SSI additionally contributed to declining purposes, as declines have been largest in counties with extra kids that participated in SSI earlier than the pandemic and in counties the place extra individuals had a self-identified incapacity.
• New macroeconomic stabilization insurance policies akin to financial influence funds and supplemental unemployment insurance coverage funds additionally seem to have led to fewer baby SSI purposes.  Counties with bigger employment reductions early within the pandemic, which probably benefited most from these stabilization insurance policies, subsequently additionally had fewer SSI purposes.

 The coverage implications of the findings are:

• The outcomes level to ways in which SSA would possibly extra successfully conduct outreach to make sure equitable entry to baby SSI because the pandemic wanes.  Tapping into native networks, akin to rising outreach actions with native organizations or college workers, may be an particularly efficient means for SSA to make sure that individuals are sufficiently conscious of the kid SSI program.
• Administrative burdens within the software course of for profit applications can cut back participation even when eligibility is unchanged.  Though SSA didn’t think about the revenue acquired from financial influence funds and supplemental unemployment insurance coverage advantages in figuring out monetary eligibility for SSI, purposes nonetheless declined extra in locations with bigger employment reductions.  Moreover, the restriction of in-person companies at discipline workplaces might have been extra burdensome in locations the place it was beforehand simpler to go to a close-by discipline workplace.