BOND Implementation and Evaluation: Second-Year Snapshot of Earnings and Benefit Impacts for Stage 1

This report, the second in a series of Snapshot Reports, documents Stage 1 impacts on earnings and benefit outcomes during the second calendar year of implementation (2012). As in the previous Snapshot Report (Stapleton et al. 2013), we estimate impacts by comparing earnings and benefit outcomes for all Stage 1 treatment subjects to those for all control subjects. The benefit offset, as administered under the Benefit Offset National Demonstration, did not have a statistically significant impact on total earnings in 2012—similar to previously reported findings for 2011. There were positive impacts on total SSDI benefits paid in 2012. However, the benefit measure used in this report includes only benefits actually paid to beneficiaries through the end of 2012. Since 2012, the Social Security Administration has continued to make retroactive adjustments to benefits for 2012 that are not reflected in the benefits paid in 2012 in this report. Thus, benefits paid for 2012 are likely to differ from the benefits paid in 2012, which are analyzed here. We are unable to predict how impacts on benefits paid for 2012 will differ from impacts on benefits paid in 2012, after all retroactive adjustments are made.