Communicating Program Eligibility: A Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Field Experiment

Jeffrey Hemmeter, John Phillips, Elana Safran and Nicholas Wilson

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2025, vol. 17, issue 2, 446-70

Abstract: We conducted a direct mail field experiment with 4,016,461 individuals to test several key hypotheses about why take-up of Supplemental Security Income among individuals age 65 and above is so low. Communicating likely eligibility in a basic letter generated substantial increases in take-up in relative terms. Adding behaviorally informed statements increased the effectiveness of these communications. Yet, the application rate in our study sample during the full 24-month follow-up period remained no greater than 7 percent. Our results reveal a modest trade-off between increasing applications and the conditional likelihood of award, as well as the award amount.

JEL-codes: C93 D12 D83 H55 I38 J14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1257/pol.20210560

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