Effects of Suspending In-Person Services at Social Security Administration Field Offices on Disability Applications and Allowances

In this study, we examine the effect of the suspension of in-person services at Social Security Administration (SSA) field offices during the COVID-19 pandemic on applications and the characteristics of applicants to see if certain groups of beneficiaries were disproportionately affected. We examine how applicant characteristics vary by the mode of application—in-person, phone, or online—to understand what groups of applicants were most likely to use in-person services prior to the suspension. We use a difference-in-differences empirical approach that enables us to estimate the impact of the suspension of in-person services on the volume of applications and the demographic composition of applicants while controlling for other pandemic-related factors. Our analysis data consists of application information from SSA’s Structured Data Repository, combined with applicant work history information from the Electronic Claims Analysis Tool. We combined the administrative data with location information of SSA field offices and county information from the American Community Survey and the New York Times COVID-19 repository.