Evaluation of the Benefits Planning, Assistance and Outreach Program: Employment supports for Social Security beneficiaries with disabilities

Individuals with disabilities remain underemployed, despite the fact that many are willing and able to work. Perceived likelihood of losing Social Security disability benefits often persuades beneficiaries to severely limit their employment participation and earnings, or more commonly, to not enter the labor force at all. Although the Social Security Administration (SSA) has instituted a number of program changes and new initiatives to reduce the barriers to employment, such efforts have had little impact. Very few beneficiaries have an accurate understanding of the effects that SSA work incentives can have on their employment status and benefits eligibility.;In response to the underutilization of potentially valuable employment support programs, SSA enacted the Benefits Planning, Assistance, and Outreach (BPAO) Program as directed by the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999. The mission of the BPAO Program was to enable SSA beneficiaries with disabilities to make more informed decisions regarding work, by disseminating accurate information to them regarding employment supports and the issues related to such work incentive programs. The Program consisted of a series of cooperative agreements to entities across the nation, whereby trained benefits specialists provided benefits counseling and assistance directly to beneficiaries while conducting ongoing outreach efforts.;There have been few comprehensive evaluation efforts related to the BPAO initiative, which was in place between 2001 and 2006. The present study assessed the accomplishments of the BPAO Program in serving a diverse population of individuals with disabilities, examined service trends across different subsets of beneficiaries, and documented the goals and anticipated employment related outcomes of BPAO participants, using the CIPP Model as a guiding conceptual framework.;The study used data from the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) National BPAO Data Management System. Analyses included descriptive statistics, chi-square tests of independence, and multinomial logistic regression to examine the relationships among the type and level of services delivered, employment supports discussed by benefits specialists, reasons for seeking assistance, anticipated employment changes, and amount of contact time for groups of beneficiaries broken down by age, primary disability, and SSA benefits status.;Results showed that the BPAO Program provided assistance to a highly diverse population of nearly 245,000 SSA beneficiaries. Those beneficiaries who received the most service time and the most intensive level of services were more likely to be employed or actively seeking employment than those who received more basic support, suggesting that, consistent with Program goals, the bulk of BPAO resources were indeed devoted to those individuals who truly wanted to work. After receiving services from the BPAO Program, the large majority of participants remained interested in securing or maintaining employment.;This study offers important information about BPAO Program operations and the range of individuals served. Results may guide SSA's ongoing policy development, providing a basis for refinements to the implementation of future initiatives to ensure that they more effectively target beneficiaries who are interested in achieving their employment potential.