Authors
Daniel Gubits, Rachel Cook, Stephen Bell, Michelle Derr, Jilian Berk, Ann Person, David Stapleton, Denise Hoffman, David Wittenburg
Abt Global, in partnership with 25 other organizations, is implementing and evaluating the Benefit Offset National Demonstration (BOND) under contract to the U.S. Social Security Administration. SSA awarded the contract for the implementation and evaluation of BOND to Abt Global in December 2009. The project will determine whether retaining benefits at higher levels of earnings will increase employment and income for recipients of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI).
The Stage 2 Early Assessment Report is the first implementation report on the Stage 2 evaluation of the
Benefit Offset National Demonstration (BOND), which is designed to learn more about the impacts of the benefit offset for those most likely to use it (recruited and informed volunteers) and to determine the extent to which significant enhancements to the basic BOND-focused WIC services affect offset utilization and impacts. This report describes the infrastructure put in place for Stage 2, the recruitment and enrollment of SSDI beneficiaries into the demonstration, the characteristics of study volunteers, the services they received in the early part of the study period, and their experiences
in using the offset.