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

Principal Investigator(s):  View help for Principal Investigator(s) Nicholas Wilson, Reed College; Jeffrey Hemmeter, United States Social Security Administration; Elana Safran, United States General Services Administration; John Phillips, United States National Institutes of Health

Version:  View help for Version V1

Name File Type Size Last Modified
Add Earnings.sas text/x-matlab 882 bytes 03/13/2024 04:41:AM
Applications 6 RandR.sas Unknown 10.3 KB 03/13/2024 04:40:AM
Birthdays.sas text/x-matlab 2.3 KB 03/13/2024 04:41:AM
Buckets Macro Year Number.sas text/x-matlab 5.5 KB 10/11/2024 12:13:PM
Communicating Program Eligibility SSI.egp application/zip 386.5 KB 05/26/2023 09:20:AM
Data_2022_06_06.do text/plain 22.5 KB 03/13/2024 04:41:AM
Earnings Bucket.sas text/x-matlab 805 bytes 10/15/2024 12:04:PM
Figures03262024.do text/plain 4.6 KB 03/13/2024 04:39:AM
Mail Files.sas text/x-matlab 1.4 KB 11/29/2024 10:45:AM
Master Do File.do text/plain 995 bytes 10/15/2024 12:04:PM

Project Citation: 

Wilson, Nicholas, Hemmeter, Jeffrey, Safran, Elana, and Phillips, John. Code for: Communicating Program Eligibility: A Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Field Experiment. Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2025. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2025-04-29. https://doi.org/10.3886/E199665V1

Project Description

Summary:  View help for Summary 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%.  Our results reveal a modest tradeoff between increasing applications and the conditional likelihood of award, as well as the award amount.

Scope of Project

JEL Classification:  View help for JEL Classification
      H50 National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: General
      I38 Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty: Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
      J14 Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-labor Market Discrimination
Geographic Coverage:  View help for Geographic Coverage United States
Data Type(s):  View help for Data Type(s) administrative records data; experimental data


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Published Versions

V1 [2025-04-29]

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