Making Disability Work? The Effects of Financial Incentives on Partially Disabled Workers

We focus on workers receiving partial DI benefits and with substantial residual work capacities that can be exploited. After the first phase of benefit entitlement, workers that do not use their residual income capacity experience a large drop in benefit income. In effect, this implies a substantial increase in incentives to resume work. With entitlement periods in the first phase of DI benefits varying across individuals, we use a difference-in-difference approach to analyze the effects on the incidence of work, the wage earnings and full work resumption of disabled workers. Based on the effect estimate on work incidence, we infer a labor elasticity rate of 0.12. Elasticity estimates are highest among younger DI recipients, as well as individuals with mental impairments. The incentive change has only a limited impact on wage earnings of partially disabled workers and no significant impact on work resumption rates.