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

Last registered on March 27, 2024

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Communicating Program Eligibility: A Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Field Experiment
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0002423
Initial registration date
September 14, 2017

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
September 16, 2017, 8:26 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated
March 27, 2024, 12:14 PM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Reed College

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
Social Security Administration
PI Affiliation
Office of Evaluation Sciences
PI Affiliation
Social Security Administration

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2017-09-15
End date
2018-06-15
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Survey data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) suggest that less than 60 percent of individuals age 65 and over who are eligible for SSI receive SSI and administrative data suggest that take-up may be substantially lower than this. The economic literature has identified at least three main barriers to SSI take-up among individuals age 65 and over. First, individuals may not be aware that they are eligible for SSI (SSA 1976, Warlick 1982), which may be a particularly important barrier for individuals for whom being age 65 and over partly determines eligibility. Second, the expected magnitude of benefits affects take-up (McGarry 2000, McGarry and Schoeni 2015), with individuals with lower expectations about benefits less likely to participate in SSI. Third, potential SSI participants may view the application process as confusing and burdensome (Warlick 1982, McGarry 1996, McGarry and Schoeni 2015).

We have designed four letters to test these hypotheses using a randomized controlled field experiment with nearly 4 million individuals. In this study, individuals age 65-80 and who are likely eligible for SSI will be assigned to receive one of these four letter types through US mail or to a control condition (i.e. business as usual). We will track SSI application filing, SSI application allowed (i.e. approved), and SSI payments using administrative data from the Social Security Administration.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Hemmeter, Jeffrey et al. 2024. "Communicating Program Eligibility: A Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Field Experiment." AEA RCT Registry. March 27. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.2423-4.1
Former Citation
Hemmeter, Jeffrey et al. 2024. "Communicating Program Eligibility: A Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Field Experiment." AEA RCT Registry. March 27. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/2423/history/215767
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Four behaviorally-informed letters will be tested against a control condition (i.e. no letter, which is the current standard procedure):

(1) the Basic Letter,
(2) the Maximum Payment Letter,
(3) the Simplifying Application Process Letter, and
(4) a Combined Letter that combines the maximum payment and the simplifying application letters.

All letters include the basic information listed on Letter (1), allowing us to measure the incremental effect of the information on a more detailed letter.
Intervention Start Date
2017-09-15
Intervention End Date
2017-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
The primary outcomes of interest are: (i) SSI application filed, and (ii) SSI application allowed. We will also examine SSI payments.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The control condition is “no letter”, which is the current standard program procedure. The treatment conditions are:

(1) the Basic Letter,
(2) the Maximum Payment Letter,
(3) the Simplifying Application Process Letter, and
(4) a Combined Letter that combines the maximum payment and the simplifying application letters.

Each treatment condition has a sample size of 100,000 letters, yielding a total letter sample size of 400,000 letters.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization done using Stata.
Randomization Unit
The unit of randomization is the individual.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
The treatment is not clustered.
Sample size: planned number of observations
Approximately 4 million individuals.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
400,000 individuals will be divided equally into 4 treatment arms. Remaining individuals will be assigned to control arm.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Power calculations (conservatively) using 1 million individuals total of whom 400,000 total are assigned to the four treatment study arms yield MDEs as follows. 0.6 percentage points for take-up in any single treatment arm compared to any other single treatment arm. 0.4 percentage points for take-up in any single treatment arm compared to control arm. 0.3 percentage points for take-up in all letter arms (pooled) compared to control arm.
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
IRB Approval Date
IRB Approval Number
Analysis Plan

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Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
Yes
Intervention Completion Date
September 15, 2017, 12:00 +00:00
Data Collection Complete
Yes
Data Collection Completion Date
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization)
4,016,461
Was attrition correlated with treatment status?
No
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations
4,016,461
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms
100,000 Basic Letters; 100,000 Maximum Benefit Letters; 100,000 Simple Application Process Letters; 100,000 Combined Letters; remaining individuals were not sent any letter.
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Yes
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials

Description
Data and Code
Citation
Hemmeter, Jeffrey et al. 2024. "Communicating Program Eligibility: A Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Field Experiment." AEA RCT Registry. March 27. 2024. "Registration Entry Title: Data and Code." AEA RCT Registry. March 27 https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.2423-4.1
File
AEJP Data.zip

MD5: 79e3269e930d3b2346cdb57498922b8c

SHA1: 4e023488783cfe0eb01dc8d66c92efb364a4360c

Uploaded At: March 27, 2024