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Professional Information:
I am now retired from Loyola College and working full time in the Office of Research, Evaluation, and Statistics of the Social Security Administration
Research Interests:
My Ph.D. thesis was in the area of Complex Variables. However, soon after, I received a university professorship at the Social Security Administration (SSA). I have continued to do work for them in the summer. The work at SSA was in the area of stochastic processes. In particular, we developed age-dependent semi-markov models of the work patterns of the disabled. I am now using survival analysis techniques to analyze the factors which help disabled beneficiaries to go back to work and stay working. The data comes from the New Beneficiary Followup Survey which is available from the Office of Research, Evaluation, and Statistics of the Social Security Administration. You can read about the survey and download the data from their homepage. You can also check out the abstracts of the Social Security Bulletin for most of my articles using the statistical techniques described above. Go to the bottom of the page to the Quick Index and click on the New Beneficiary Survey or the Bulletin Abstracts.
The abstract for my latest article in the Social Security Bulletin:
Congress is currently placing considerable emphasis on returning disabled-worker beneficiaries to work. However, going back to work is only the first step in the complex process of program termination due to work and trust fund savings. Not only must the beneficiary get a job, but also the work effort must be sustained at what is considered a substantial gainful activity (SGA) level by the disability program (so that an SGA termination will result) and a reasonable living condition must be achieved by the beneficiary (so that the person is motivated to continue working and lose benefits). This article focuses on those factors that affect the ability of the beneficiary to sustain such a work effort. Combined with previous findings about returning to work, we begin to see the overall effect of the factors on work efforts.
Beneficiaries who have physical therapy rehabilitation have a higher tendency to start working and a lower tendency to stop. Those with vocational training or general education have a higher tendency to start working, but these factors do not help to sustain the effort. Beneficiaries who were helped with job placement have a higher tendency to start work, but they also have a higher tendency to stop. If beneficiaries knew about the trial-work period but not about either the extended period of eligibility or Medicare continuation, then they had a higher tendency to start work and a higher tendency to stop. However, if they knew about all three work incentive provisions, then the tendency to work was not affected.
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