Supplemental Security Income outreach: Overcoming stigma.
Item
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Title
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Supplemental Security Income outreach: Overcoming stigma.
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Identifier
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AAI9000068
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identifier
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9000068
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Creator
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Stratton, Joyce.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Harold Lewis
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Date
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1989
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Social Work
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Abstract
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In 1974, Supplemental Security Income (SSI) legislation became effective, under the Social Security Administration (SSA), to provide additional federal government monetary benefits to those among the aged poor (65 and over), the blind, and the disabled who, satisfy both income and asset eligibility requirements, for the extra federal SSI income. Despite intermittent SSI outreach efforts to inform potential SSI eligibles of this opportunity, many older persons have failed to apply for benefits. This doctoral dissertation identifies reasons why outreach efforts have failed to produce expected SSI applications from the elderly, describes research undertaken to determine what type of outreach would stimulate applications from the elderly, and explains the development and implementation of the author's SSI direct-mail outreach campaign that produced a 17.1 percent enrollment increase among those four hundred persons who were sent special SSI mailings and were then followed up with telephone interviews. This 17.1 percent finding is based on an SSI enrollment of 181 survey respondents out of a total of four hundred contacted by mail with telephone follow-up. The author's belief is that in order to motivate elderly SSI eligibles to apply for SSI benefits, the information they receive must be consumer-oriented, nonstigmatic, and personalized--targeted specifically to the elderly SSI-eligible population. Market research must produce information about the SSI-eligible aged across the country that includes demographics, lifestyles, attitudes, and other characteristics of the elderly in various geographic areas. This information will guide the development of local SSI outreach mailings, so they address the reasons for resistance of the aged poor in that population's own particular idiom--and also convey the SSI message in a simple, personalized, and nonstigmatic manner.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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D.S.W.
