Bridging Disciplinary Boundaries (January 11 - 14, 2007)

The Census Bureau monitors and releases information on the number of poor people who live in poverty, as it is officially defined. The U.S. poverty measure is an absolute income measure, determined according to the number of people living in a household. Researchers and advocates have recently argued that using income data to measure poverty in America tells only part of the story – in order to accurately capture or understand poverty, asset measures are necessary (Boshara, 2006; Sherraden, 2005). Assets are defined as accumulated wealth, and they offer families resources for long-term economic security and social well-being. The purpose of this study was to determine if there are asset gaps in households with and without adults with disabilities, and compare assets with traditional income measures for this population.

Methods:

Data were drawn from the 2001 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), for a sample of 875 households with at least one disabled adult and 6,083 households without any disabled adults. Study outcomes included total income (from all earned and unearned sources) and net worth (net assets minus all debts). Multivariate regression analyses controlled a host of demographic and family structure factors. SUDAAN was used for these analyses because it uses Taylor-series linearization to correctly estimate variance with complex sampling designs like the SIPP

Results:

Households with an adult with disabilities had substantially reduced income as contrasted with others. The estimated marginal mean annual income for households with disabled adults was $45,371; the mean annual income for other households was $63,388 (F=82.4, p<.00001). The asset gap was even more striking than the income gap. Households with an adult with disabilities had substantially reduced net worth, as contrasted with other households. The estimated marginal mean net worth for households with disabled adults was $29,673; it was $70,075 for households with nondisabled adults (F= 9.78, p<.01).

Policy Implications:

Employing income measures has traditionally led to a focus on income support programs such as income transfers and rental assistance. For adults with disabilities, income transfer programs like Supplemental Security Income and Disability Insurance are the most prevalent form of available assistance in the U.S. The present results indicate that current disability-based income transfers are not sufficient to reduce the gap in income or assets in households with adults with disabilities Previous research has found that while income-focused programs have succeeded in easing hardship for many families, they have failed to provide the poor with asset-building tools that are necessary for long-term social and economic development. The results of the present study suggest that researchers, advocates and policy makers who are interested in the wellbeing of adults with disabilities must broaden their focus from income measures to encompass assets. Targeted programs that support adults with disabilities to accrue assets may be important to ensuring the welfare of this population and therefore should be designed and implemented in the U.S.