Join AEI for two panels exploring these questions in depth. First, top academic researchers in the field of labor force participation, disability assistance programs, and the health and well-being of the labor force will discuss their work. A panel of practitioners will follow to discuss their efforts to support people with disabilities or other health issues to remain or rejoin the labor market.

With increasing public attention on declining labor force participation, particularly among prime-age men, health impairments that make working difficult and government disability programs that discourage it have become top issues to consider. What role do disabilities and poor health play? How can public policy better help Americans with disabilities experience the dignity of work and move up the economic ladder?

In the second panel, David D’Arcangelo of the Massachusetts Office of Disability emphasized the importance of looking at disability not as a monolithic condition, but rather a range of conditions. Allison Wohl of the Association of People Supporting Employment First pointed out that our disability assistance system forces many people to declare that they cannot work to get the support they would need to work. Grant Collins of Fedcap Rehabilitative Services called for states to adopt a model in which people who claim they are unable to work are independently evaluated by a physician and given work support.

AEI’s Nicholas Eberstadt began by examining the increase over the past 30 years of prime-age men receiving disability benefits. His findings indicate that the increase is almost solely concentrated among those not in the labor force and that enrollment in disability programs closely tracks educational attainment. Richard Burkhauser of Cornell University argued that the increase in disability benefits and its effect on nonwork are largely due to policy changes. Anne Case of Princeton University countered, arguing that demographics and declining health are largely to blame.

Richard Burkhauser is the Sarah Gibson Blanding Professor of Policy Analysis in the Department of Policy Analysis and Management at Cornell University and a senior research fellow at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. His professional career has focused on how public policies affect the economic behavior and well-being of vulnerable populations, such as older persons, people with disabilities, and low-skilled workers. He has published widely on these topics in journals of demography, economics, gerontology, and public policy, and he is the coauthor of “The Declining Work and Welfare of People with Disabilities” (AEI Press, 2011). He was the 2010 president of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago.

Anne Case is the Alexander Stewart 1886 Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University, where she is the director of the Research Program in Development Studies. She has written extensively on health over the life course. She was awarded the Kenneth J. Arrow Award from the International Health Economics Association for her work on the links between economic status and health status in childhood and the Cozzarelli Prize from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences for her research on midlife morbidity and mortality. Dr. Case currently serves on the advisory council for the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. She is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and an affiliate of the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit at the University of Cape Town. She received her Ph.D. from Princeton University.

Grant Collins is the senior vice president of Fedcap’s Workforce Development Practice Area. Before joining Fedcap in 2013, he served as senior vice president for Workforce Service and chief strategist for ResCare Inc. Before that, he served as special assistant and senior policy adviser to the assistant secretary for Children and Families. He also served as the deputy director of the Office of Family Assistance in the US Department of Health and Human Services, where he administered the nation’s principal welfare program, the $16.5 billion Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, as head of the TANF Bureau. Mr. Collins served as a key member of several highly acclaimed welfare reform efforts, including reforms in New York City and Minnesota and the landmark Wisconsin Works program.

David D’Arcangelo was diagnosed with a rare eye disease that left him legally blind at a young age, but now he has built successful careers in both the public and private sectors during his past two decades of public service. He now serves the Baker-Polito administration as the director of the Massachusetts Office on Disability, where he is working to bring about full and equal participation of people with disabilities in all aspects of life. He has previous experience in government, which includes serving in the administrations of four governors, in the Massachusetts State Legislature, and as city councilor-at-large in Malden. Outside of government, Mr. D’Arcangelo founded and served as managing director of Arc Angel Communications, a public relations and social media firm. Before that, he was the chief communications officer for M&L Transit Systems Inc. and the regional development manager for the nation’s largest affordable housing senior living rental co-op, CSI Support & Development Services.

Robert Doar is the Morgridge Fellow in Poverty Studies at AEI, where he studies and evaluates how free enterprise and improved federal policies and programs can reduce poverty and provide opportunities for vulnerable Americans. Before joining AEI, Mr. Doar worked for Mayor Michael Bloomberg as commissioner of New York City’s Human Resources Administration, where he administered 12 public assistance programs, including welfare, food assistance, public health insurance, and help for people living with HIV/AIDS. Before joining the Bloomberg administration, Mr. Doar was New York State commissioner of social services, helping make New York a model for the implementation of welfare reform.

Nicholas Eberstadt holds the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at AEI, where he researches and writes extensively on demographics and economic development generally, and more specifically on international security in the Korean peninsula and Asia. Domestically, he focuses on poverty and social well-being. Dr. Eberstadt is also a senior adviser to the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR). His latest book, “Men Without Work: America’s Invisible Crisis” (Templeton Press, 2016), uncovers a widely underreported phenomenon of the growing number of men who are neither working nor looking for work. Other works include “Russia’s Peacetime Demographic Crisis” (NBR, 2010) and “The End of North Korea” (AEI Press, 1999).

Angela Rachidi is a research fellow in poverty studies at AEI, where she studies the effects of public policy and existing support programs on low-income families, continuing the work she did for the New York City Human Resources Administration for almost a decade. A former deputy commissioner for policy research and evaluation for the Department of Social Services in New York, Dr. Rachidi oversaw a team of analysts working on studies that were used to help local officials make informed policy decisions on how work, family, and public policy can reduce poverty and improve the economic situation of poor families. She has a Ph.D. in social welfare policy from the New School’s Milano School of International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy.

Scott Winship is a visiting fellow at the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, a new think tank focused on upward mobility for the bottom half of Americans. Previously, he was the Walter B. Wriston Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a fellow at the Brookings Institution. He writes a column for Forbes.com and has testified before Congress on the issues of poverty, inequality, and employment, and he served as an adviser to Governor Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign. He contributed a chapter on welfare reform to the influential policy volume “Room to Grow.” Dr. Winship received a Ph.D. in social policy from Harvard University.

Allison Wohl is the executive director of the Association of People Supporting Employment First (APSE), a national membership organization that promotes the full inclusion of people with disabilities in the workplace and community. After 15 years in corporate America, having worked in the federal practices of two consulting firms and at GE, she moved to advocacy in 2009 after the birth of her youngest son Julian, who was diagnosed with Down syndrome. In 2012, Ms. Wohl took on the role of executive director of the Collaboration to Promote Self-Determination, a coalition of 22 groups that advocates for the modernization of the public system of supports and services for Americans with disabilities. She received her M.B.A. from the College of William and Mary and her undergraduate degree from Binghamton University.

Related Materials

“Men Without Work”

Nicholas Eberstadt | AEI | September 19, 2016

“America’s work problem: How addressing the reasons people don’t work can reduce poverty”

Angela Rachidi | AEI | July 14, 2016

“Stay-at-work programs for the ill/disabled could save money and reduce poverty”

Angela Rachidi | AEI | March 3, 2016

“The Declining Work and Welfare of People with Disabilities”

Richard Burkhauser and Mary Daly | AEI Press | September 1, 2011