Summary

Youngsters’s participation within the federal Supplemental Safety Revenue (SSI) program has declined considerably over the previous decade.  Many youngsters with disabilities is likely to be eligible for SSI, but obstacles equivalent to a lack of expertise of this system or perceived challenges with making use of might restrict participation.  On this paper, we use machine studying fashions on Medicaid administrative information to estimate the quantity and traits of youngsters who’re doubtlessly eligible for SSI however don’t at the moment obtain advantages.

The paper discovered that:

• A considerable variety of youngsters are doubtlessly eligible for SSI.  Relying on the precise chance used to outline potential eligibility, the rise might possible vary from 10 p.c to 55 p.c improve in enrollment (relative to the present variety of SSI recipients).
• Youngsters doubtlessly eligible for SSI have intensive well being care utilization, usually extra intensive than present youngster SSI recipients.  That is significantly notable given the sample that SSI recipients have far more intensive utilization than non-SSI recipients, in step with the requirement that SSI recipients should have a incapacity.

The coverage implications of the findings are:

• Native-level estimates offered on this paper, which establish counties and states the place many youngsters are doubtlessly eligible for SSI, may facilitate more practical outreach to households who’re doubtlessly eligible for SSI.  Particularly when supplemented with extra information on socioeconomic deprivation, extra narrowly focusing on outreach to areas the place many youngsters are more likely to be eligible may enable for an environment friendly use of restricted assets.
• Making a direct hyperlink between Medicaid and the Social Safety Administration’s (SSA) information may enhance the general administration of the SSI program.  For instance, SSA might use the information right here to establish youngsters who is likely to be eligible based mostly on their sample of claims and conduct outreach to them.  Alternatively, the information may facilitate extra streamlined incapacity determinations for brand spanking new functions by permitting SSA to evaluate latest patterns of well being care claims.