Mathematica Policy Research

The state-federal vocational rehabilitation program serves approximately one million individuals a year and spends about $3 billion annually. This article looks at evidence-based best practices from the program.

The employment rate for adults with intellectual disabilities (ID) has remained stable during the recent decades, despite investment from the federal government. This study aimed to identify characteristics of adults with ID who are employed and to understand the paths towards employment for these individuals. Results show several characteristics are associated with greater likelihood of employment, including younger age, early work experience, and higher levels of adaptive behavior.

The supports and resources around the Section 503 new rules are mainly directed toward employers who are federal contractors. Yet, these new rules could also have significant impacts on employment service providers (ESPs) who work with individuals with disabilities, offering new opportunities for them to build partnerships, expand services, and create talent pipelines. The purpose of this article is to enable ESPs to prepare for the implementation of the new Section 503 rules.

Using data from 360 health care providers and 540 Medicaid eligible people with disabilities (PWD), the authors compared perceived barriers to care from the perspective of both providers and PWD. The results indicated major variations in provider and PWD perceptions. Policy responses to these findings should address the specific needs of people with different types of disabling conditions rather than assuming all PWD face similar challenges in accessing and utilizing health care.

This study evaluates the outcomes of the disability applications submitted to the Social Security Administration (SSA) through the Benefits Entitlement Services Team (B.E.S.T) Demonstration Project. B.E.S.T was a collaborative effort to locate homeless adults and assist them in applying for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments and/or Disability Insurance (DI). The findings show that B.E.S.T contributed to increased access to disability benefits for applicants.

The employment rate among persons with disabilities is less than half the rate among persons without disabilities. Broad innovations are needed to reduce this disparity.These authors examined employers' perspective related to: a) challenges they face when hiring people with disabilities, b) advantages (i.e. the business case) to employing people with disabilities, and c) their recommendations for innovations in both the public disability employment services systems and their own hiring practices

A growing emphasis on government accountability has increased interest in the collection and use of employment outcomes data. At the national level, data on employment for individuals with disabilities are available through multiple data collection systems. However, many systems are fragmented and only loosely coordinated across agencies. This article offers a qualitative, in-depth look at how employment data is collected and used within four state intellectual/developmental disability agencies.

Although Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits are an important support to many people with disabilities, modifications to programs are under consideration given current and projected governmental fiscal constraints. This article provides data about levels of safety net cross-participation among working age SSDI and SSI program participants and estimates how changes to disability benefit levels might influence their economic security.

Adults with intellectual disability experience substantial health inequities. The authors sought to investigate the extent to which a sample of international public health research includes and identifies people with intellectual disability. Among eligible articles in these selected public health journals, it was found that cohort studies passively exclude people with intellectual disability, while randomized controlled trials (RCTs) actively exclude this population.

We use the American Time Use Survey to examine the extent to which adults with disabilities—defined using both the new six-question sequence on disability and the traditional work-limitation question—spend more time on health-related activities and less time on other activities than those without disabilities.