David Weaver

Overview

Economist and retired federal employee; affiliated with the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) at the time of publication. Works on Social Security disability policy, beneficiary characteristics, and program evaluation. Research focuses on both approved and denied Social Security disability applicants, using SIPP and administrative data.

Key Contributions / Features

• Author of Weaver (2020), the first systematic descriptive characterization of the Social Security denied applicant population (~12.4 million working-age adults), documenting their health, earnings, and poverty profiles relative to approved beneficiaries and the general population.
• Demonstrates that denied applicants are nearly as severely impaired as approved beneficiaries on health measures, providing descriptive evidence against the "program laxity" interpretation of declining DI beneficiary mortality.

Related

• Social Security Administration
• Disability Insurance Program
• DI Denied Population
• SSA Sequential Determination Process

Sources

• Weaver 2020 — Social Security Disability Benefits Characteristics of the Approved and Denied Populations
• Gelber Moore and Strand 2017 — Disability Insurance Income Saves Lives