David Rajnes

Overview

David Rajnes is a research analyst with the Office of Research, Evaluation, and Statistics (ORES), Office of Retirement and Disability Policy (ORDP), Social Security Administration. He has published on both disability policy and workers' expectations about retirement benefits, spanning comparative international surveys and U.S. survey meta-analyses.

Key Contributions / Features

• Co-author with Tony Notaro of the 2019 Social Security Bulletin comparative survey of vocational factor use in disability determination processes across 11 OECD countries — the first cross-national study focused specifically on vocational factors. Showed that work experience is the universal vocational factor; age is explicit in few countries; education explicit in fewer still; and the U.S. vocational grid is uniquely formulaic among developed economies.
• Co-author with John A. Turner of Turner and Rajnes (2021), a meta-analysis of 18 surveys (N > 130,000, 1971–2020) documenting workers' systematically pessimistic and unrealistic expectations about future Social Security retirement benefits. See Social Security Benefit Expectations.

Related

• Tony Notaro
• John A. Turner
• Vocational Grid
• SSA Sequential Determination Process
• Social Security Administration
• Social Security Benefit Expectations

Sources

• Rajnes and Notaro 2019 — Vocational Factors in Disability Claim Assessment A Comparative Survey of 11 Countries
• Turner and Rajnes 2021 — Workers' Expectations About Their Future Social Security Benefits