Creating Financial Incentives to Serve Partial Benefit Recipients in the Ticket to Work Program

摘要

The Social Security Administrations most recent employment initiative for people with disabilities, the Ticket to Work program, creates incentives for employment service providers (called employment networks, or ENs), including state vocational rehabilitation (VR) agencies, to serve individuals receiving federal income support who have the potential to leave cash assistance through increased earnings. Recipients perceived as unlikely to leave the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program might not be served, however, even when able to benefit from Ticket services and reduce but not eliminate their cash benefits. At present, recipients are required to leave cash assistance entirely before most provider reimbursement can take place. Concerns have arisen about this gap in incentives to serve less-employable SSI recipients, along with calls to reform the Ticket program by adding payments for partial benefit reductions, consistent with the priority given to hard-to-serve individuals in the Ticket legislation. This paper examines the rationale for expanding reimbursement to ENs that serve partial benefit recipients. Specifically, it considers reforms that add to the payments already issued on behalf of working recipients (by Tickets milestone-outcome reimbursement component, which pays for only higher-earning SSI recipients and for at most 12 months) to provide more universal, long-term incentives.