CPS ASEC - SSI/SSDI due to disability

CPS
1

Hello! I have a question regarding SSI/SSDI income due to disability. I know there are variables indicating the amount of social security income and supplemental security income at the respondent and family levels (SSI_VAL, SS_VAL, FSSIVAL, and FSSVAL). But I’m interested in creating SSI/SSDI income due to disability.

As I was constructing such separate variables, I noticed that quite many individuals indicated that they received SSDI or SSI due to disability but reported zero amount of social security payments received or SSI (2,086 obs and 3,517 obs respectively in the 2019 ASEC).

To be specific, I constructed the SSDI/SSI income receipt due to disability from variables RESNSS1, RESNSS2, RESNSSI1, and RESNSSI2 – asking the reasons for getting SSI/Supplemental SI (stata code: gen dis_ssdissi = (resnss1==2 | resnss2==2 | resnssi1==1 | resnssi1==2 | resnssi2==1 | resnssi2==2) ). Only about 4% of respondents received SSDI/SSI due to disability among the SS/SSI recipients, which I also wonder if that’s normal.

But when I checked the values in SS_VAL and SSI_VAL among the respondents who indicated receiving SSDI and SSI due to disability, 2,086 and 3,517 observations have zero value.

Maybe I missed something here when I constructed SSDI/SSI disability income variables. Somehow, those zero value respondents are people who did not receive SS or SSI (SS_YN==2 or SSI_YN==2), which does not make sense.

Is there other way to construct SSDI/SSI income amount due to disability? It would be greatly appreciated if you could help me!

Thanks so much!
HJ

2

I think your issue is with how you are defining ’ dis_ssdissi’. This will identify anyone who received either SSI or SSDI due to disability. But some people who receive SSI, will have zero SSDI income, and vice versa. To check this, I made an IPUMS extract containing the 2019 ASEC sample. When I tabulated the value of SSI income (IPUMS variable INCSSI) for those who reported a reason for having SSI income (IPUMS variables WHYSSI1 and WHYSSI2), all income values were greater than 0. Same for SSDI income (IPUMS variable INCSS and reasons WHYSS1, WHYSS2). See my screenshot below.

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3

Thank you very much for verifying it! It makes sense.