Social Security

During the past 30 years, blacks have been allowed benefits at consistently lower rates than whites under the Social Security Disability Insurance program. Under the Supplemental Security Income program, a similar racial difference has been apparent for at least the last 5 years. GAO studied the lower allowance rate among blacks and found that, within the general population, blacks were receiving benefits at a higher rate than whites; within the severely impaired population, blacks were receiving benefits at a rate comparable to that of whites. This is so notwithstanding the lower allowance rate among blacks who apply for benefits each year. For the most part, the lower black allowance rate in 1988 initial decisions for the two programs appears to be due to black applicants' having less severe impairments and being younger than whites. For Supplemental Security Income applicants aged 18 to 24, however, the racial difference in initial decisions was almost twice that of any other age group. The racial difference was largely unexplained by differences in severity and type of impairment or in demographic characteristics.

GAO found that: (1) despite a lower allowance rate among black applicants, within the general and severely impaired populations, blacks receive Social Security benefits at a rate higher than or equal to that of whites, primarily because they apply at a higher rate and because a larger proportion of blacks are severely impaired; (2) in 1988, within the general population of working-age adults, blacks were almost twice as likely as whites to receive DI benefits and four times as likely to receive SSI benefits; (3) under the DI Program in 1988, state disability determination services (DDS) allowed benefits to 36 percent of white applicants and 29 percent of black applicants, and under the SSI program, DDS allowed benefits to 37 percent of white applicants and 29 percent of black applicants; (4) for SSI applicants between the ages of 18 and 24, DDS allowed benefits to 47 percent of white applicants and 34 percent of black applicants; (5) such racial differences do not appear to be related to differences in education, sex, geographic location, percentage of urban population, or impairment type; (6) among all applicants, the racial difference in allowance rates among young SSI applicants is particularly large for mental and neurological/sensory disorders; (7) under the DI Program, ALJ at the appeals level allowed benefits to 66 percent of white appellants and 51 percent of black appellants; (8) under the SSI Program, ALJ allowed benefits to 60 percent of white appellants and 51 percent of black appellants; and (9) racial differences in allowance rates vary widely across Social Security Administration (SSA) regions.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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