Six New Papers on Workers’ Compensation and Social Security Disability Insurance

For Immediate Release: June 17, 2005
Contact: Jill Braunstein at (202) 452-8097 or at jillbraun@nasi.org

WASHINGTON, DC – Six papers on workers’ compensation and its interaction with the Social Security Disability Insurance program were published in the Social Security Bulletin in Vol. 65 No. 4 (May 2005). The papers grew out of the seminar, “Interaction of Workers’ Compensation and Social Security Disability Insurance,” co-sponsored by the National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI) and the Social Security Administration, which took place in June 2004. “Convening leaders in the state-run workers’ compensation programs with experts in federal Social Security disability insurance opened a promising new dialogue,” said Virginia Reno, Vice President for Income Security at the NASI. The papers are listed below and available for download free-of-charge from www.nasi.org:

• Compensating Workers for Permanent Partial Disabilities, by Peter S. Barth
• Workers’ Compensation: A Background for Social Security Professionals, by Ann Clayton
• Benefit Adequacy in State Workers’ Compensation Programs, by H. Allan Hunt
• The Fraction of Disability Caused at Work, by Robert T. Reville and Robert F. Schoeni
• Reassessing the Relationship Between Disability Insurance and Workers’ Compensation, by James B. Lockhart III
• Workers’ Compensation, Social Security Disability Insurance, and the Offset: A Fact Sheet, by Virginia Reno, Cecili Thompson Williams, and Ishita Sengupta

Peter Barth, a Professor at the University of Connecticut, explained the varied methods used by states to adjudicate claims for partial disabilities, a challenge not faced in the Social Security program. Ann Clayton, a Consultant with WCRI, explained how compensation programs began early in the 20th century, long before passage of the Social Security Act in the 1930s. Allan Hunt, Assistant Executive Director at the W.E. Upjohn Institute, wrote about ways to assess the adequacy of cash benefits in a wage replacement system. Robert T. Reville, a Director at RAND, and Robert F. Schoeni, a Professor at the University of Michigan, drew attention to the close link between the programs when they reported that many people who receive Social Security disability benefit report that their disabilities were caused at work. Workers’ compensation administrators and scholars were impressed by the workload challenges the Social Security Administration faces in implementing the offset of benefits against State workers’ compensation payments, as noted by James B. Lockhart, III, Deputy Commissioner of Social Security.

The seminar was planned by co-chairs Peter S. Barth and Ann Clayton under the auspices of NASI’s Workers’ Compensation Steering Committee, chaired by Bob Steggert of Marriott International Inc. NASI also issues an annual report on “Workers’ Compensation: Benefits, Cost and Coverage.” The report with the 2003 data will be available in July 2005.

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The National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization made up of the nation’s leading experts on social insurance. Its mission is to promote understanding and informed policymaking on social insurance and related programs through research, public education, and the open exchange of ideas.