Ticket to Work Survey Part B Supporting Statement

PART B OF SUPPORTING STATEMENT FOR

SSA SURVEY OF TICKET TO WORK BENEFICIARIES

OMB No. 0960-NEW

B. Collections of Information Employing Statistical Methods

1. Potential Respondent Universe

Respondents will be selected from the approximately 10 million individuals who have been approved for the Ticket to Work Program. Generally, eligible beneficiaries:

• Are 18 years or older but less than 65 years;

• Are Title II disability beneficiaries (exceptions are stated in the legislation and regulations);

• Are in "current pay status" for monthly Title II cash benefits based on disability (exceptions stated in the legislation and regulations) or are a Title XVI disability beneficiary (exceptions stated in the legislation and regulations);

• Monthly Federal cash benefits based on disability or blindness under Title XVI are not suspended and SSA records show:

  • A case is not designated as a medical improvement expected diary review case, or

  • A case is designated as medical improvement diary review case and the SSA has conducted at least one CDR and made a final determination or decision that the disability continues.

2. Procedures for Collecting Information

Respondents will be selected randomly by SSA for the list of eligible beneficiaries in each of two strata using the procedures described below:

Our methodology calls for a nation-wide sample of 800 completed interviews divided evenly between two strata - 400 completed interviews with a national sample of eligible beneficiaries who use the Ticket to Work Program, and a national comparison sample of 400 eligible beneficiaries who do not use the Program. While beneficiaries of all age groups will be included, of particular interest are two specific age groups: 18-25 and 26-39. These cohorts are of particular interest because they are a target group for the Ticket to Work marketing plan. A minimum of 100 interviews will be completed in both of these two age cohorts in each stratum. While it is hoped that this can be accomplished with random sampling, it may be necessary to oversample these cohorts in order to meet this requirement. Any oversampling that may be necessary will be adjusted for by weighting the number of cases to meet the distribution by age in the population from which the sample was drawn.

Level of Precision: A sample of 400 participants offers a precision level of plus or minus 4.91% and a pooled sampling error that will allow for a detection of differences between groups when the difference is 6.94% or more. Obviously, the level of precision and pooled sampling error will increase if only a portion of each stratum is considered. This level of precision optimizes the trade off between respondent burdens while at the same time obtaining accurate information on which effective communications decisions for this very important project can be obtained.

Collecting the Information: Telephone interviews will be conducted during evening and weekend hours. Each interview will take approximately 15 minutes.

3. Methods to Maximize Response Rates

The following methods will be used to maximize response rates:

• Initial draw of a minimum of 10-to-1 ratio of sample to quota for completes (i.e., draw 4,000 names to complete 400 interviews in each stratum for a total of 8,000 from the 10 million beneficiaries in the two strata who will receive the letter), in order to only draw sample names once from the administrative files as well as to make sure there will be a sufficient number of cases to guarantee the completed sample will have a minimum of 100 cases in the 18-26 and the 26-39 age groups;

• Initial release of 2-to-1 ratio of sample to quota for completes, in order to accommodate expected rates of non-location, non-eligibility and non-participation;

• Subsequent adjustment of sample release by cell where additional cases may be needed based upon actual experience with location, eligibility and participation;

• Up to 8 calls to locate an individual selected to be interviewed;

• Make appointments if the initial contact was an inconvenient time to complete the survey;

• Refusal conversion attempts for initial “soft” refusals; and

• Reweight the survey results to match the age distribution of the originally drawn 4,000 cases.

The goal of the survey is an 80% survey response rate, and plans will be developed to achieve that goal.

4. Test of Procedures

The questionnaire to be used for these surveys is not considered to be difficult or in need of special testing. Typical procedures call for the training of interviewers and then the completion of a small number of interviews. These interviews will be included in the final dataset so that separate clearance is not required. The interviews from the first night of interviewing will point out any minor adjustments that may be required. These are typically minor wording changes that make the intent of the question clearer to the respondent.

5. Contact Information for Agency Contacts Involved in Design Study

SSA Office of Communications:

Joann Sim

Social Security Administration

6401 Security Blvd.

3100 Annex Building

Baltimore, MD 21235

410-966-5668

[email protected]

Contractor: Schulman, Ronca & Bucuvalas, Inc.

Stephen Dientsfrey

310-608-3883

[email protected]

Ticket to Work Survey Part B

2/6/2021

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