NY24-01: Racial Disparities Across US Households in Receipt of OASDI, SSI, and Other Major Public Income Supports
Abstract/Specific Aims:
As noted in the document Retirement and Disability Research Consortium Focal Area List for Fiscal Year 2024: “SSA continues to be very interested in research on racial, ethnic, and sex equity related to Social Security.” The proposed study will contribute to the active and growing literature on economic racial disparities in the U.S., specifically disparities in the sufficiency of households’ disposable (post-tax, post- transfer) income, as well as disparities in households’ receipt of public income supports, both means-tested and contributory. The proposed study will be part of an ongoing research project focused on how public programs shape households’ disposable income and how those programs’ effects vary by race.
The larger project—which encompasses several public programs, including OASDI and SSI, two programs central to SSA’s concerns—incorporates a novel framework that emphasizes program structure, specifically the extent to which income transfers are centralized versus decentralized. The project team conceptualizes centralized vs decentralized in relation to three dimensions: financing, administration, and rule-making, each of which can be scored as falling on a scale that runs from low to high levels of state discretion. OASDI and SSI are largely centralized, although recipient composition and receipt rates vary markedly across states. Importantly, comparing patterns of racial disparity between these crucial SSA programs and others that are more decentralized (e.g., TANF, Unemployment Insurance) helps to uncover the ways in which the centralized structure of the SSA programs matters. The research uses this framework to examine the impact of program design on racial disparities in socioeconomic well-being. Though recent scholarship explores racial poverty gaps (Laird et al. 2018; Baker et al. 2022), and other research focuses on the economic impact of specific transfers (Wimer et al. 2020), little research compares racial inequalities across income transfer programs. Further, this research will compare recipiency across distinct household types to examine the extent of OASDI and SSI’s impact in supporting household income.
