table of contents- home page - text-only home page The Ticket to Work Incentive Improvement Act of 1999: The United States' New Employment Program By Lex Frieden (lfrieden@bcm.tmc.edu) On December 15, 2000, I had the honor of being the keynote speaker at a conference sponsored by the U.S. Social Security Administration and the National Academy of Social Insurance in Washington, D.C. Attending the conference were more than 300 individuals, including consumer advocates, federal and state agency staff, and public policy experts. Many of the conference attendees were concerned about issues pertaining to the high rate of unemployment among people with disabilities in the U.S. Conversely, they were concerned about the large sum of tax payer dollars being paid to working-age Social Security beneficiaries with disabilities. It is ironic that approximately two-thirds of non-working disabled persons who are receiving benefits report that they would prefer to be working and earning money rather than having money come to them as a benefit for not working. In the past several years, the U.S. Social Security Administration has taken many steps to assure that non-working people with disabilities who are receiving benefits are given opportunity to return to work. Many inducements have been offered to help people return to work, including the promise of assistance with education and training and a commitment to continue providing health insurance coverage even though individuals may no longer be eligible to receive cash benefits because they are working. Other steps have been taken to remove so-called disincentives from the decision-making equation that people with disabilities must consider when they think of returning to work following recovery from rehabilitation or adjustment to a disability which may have been caused by accident or illness. The most recent initiative taken by the Social Security Administration in response to Congressional mandate is that of TWWIIA (the Ticket to Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999). In my opportunity to speak to the conference attendees, I emphasized the important opportunities offered by TWWIIA legislation and the need for advocates, consumers, service providers, and public officials to work together to implement and recognize the full benefits of the TWWIIA program. Conference attendees participated in a series of discussions and workshops to identify and share ideas about ways to make the TWWIIA implementation effort most effective. In some respects, the TWWIIA program is similar to other back-to-work programs found in the U.S. and other countries. The program has a number of incentives that can be offered to benefit recipients to help them reintegrate into the work place. However, TWWIIA has one major incentive that, as far as I am aware, no other back-to-work program has. That is, TWWIIA will pay the service provider agency, the job placement specialist, or the mentor a large portion of the funds which otherwise would have been paid in benefits had the individual not become employed. In other words, agencies which provide employment training and job placement to people with disabilities will receive a fixed portion of that person's prospective Social Security cash benefit when the subject individual goes back to work and in the first few years during the individual's employment. Since this program is just in the early stages of implementation and rules for its implementation are just now being written and distributed, it is impossible to say how successful the program may be. Nonetheless, I believe that it is important to try new measures to encourage people who want to work to do so, and it is equally important to reward those agencies and individuals who are successful at getting people with disabilities back to work. The TWWIIA program is innovative and could well be an effective new measure for the disability community and for those who are interested in insuring opportunities for people with disabilities in the competitive working environment. We will report more on the implementation of TWWIIA, as well as its perceived impact during the next few months. table of contents- home page - text-only home page