one side of that debate is argued by virginia of nasi and lisa ekman. the other side was taken by economist richard burr conger and mary daly. you'll also find a blue evaluation form in your packet and we really appreciate it if you would fill that out and return it to a nasi staff member before you leave today. we also encourage you to pick up copies of other nasi resources which are available at a table outside the meeting room. so, to begin i'd like to turn to steve goss. steve? [applause] >> thanks for setting this up and have the opportunity to talk to you all about social security disability programs, which i assume everybody in the room and hopefully who is hearing and seeing this event from elsewhere knows that social security does the program not reserves almost 9 million disabled worker beneficiaries in a country, and another couple million people who are children and spouse dependence of those disabled workers, so it's a big program answers a lot of people. and what i can really speak to probably most effectively and hopefully usefully is the

steve goss, who is the chief act waefrt social security administration, lisa ekman, senior policy advisers at health and disability advocates and dave stapleton directly of the center for studying disability policy. next we'll hear brief responses to the presentations from marty ford and from tony young, senior public policy strategist at nish and tony is en route here and will join us when he gets there. the full biographies of all the speakers in the folders along with the agenda, and power point discussions from the presenters and an article published recently in the journal of policy, analysis and management. one side of that debate is argued by virginia reno of nasi and lisa he can land. the other side was taen by the economist richard burk houser and mary daly. you'll find a blue evaluation form in your pact, and we would appreciate it if you would fill it out and return it to a staff member before you leave today. we also encourage you to pick up copies of other nasi resources, which are available at a table outside the meeting room. so to begin i'd like to turn to steve goss. steve

next we'll hear from lisa ekman of health and disability advocates. lisa? >> good morning. thank you, mark. thank you, steve, for that great presentation. i am going to start off by talking a little bit about the importance of the social security disability insurance program to people with disabilities. it is vitally important. to get provide critical income support for many people with disabilities and their families. in fact, it list many people out of poverty. almost half of ssdi beneficiaries rely on these critical income benefits for more than 90% of their total income. it is the one thing that keeps many people with disabilities from leading lives of abject poverty and homelessness. and the want to share just a couple of very brief stories of some people who receive social security disability insurance benefits, where in both cases it did actually prevent them from being homeless. the first is a man named henry, and he was in his 50s. he had severe cardiac problems, had worked in insurance industry for a very long time, paid into the social studies system and earn his

and next we'll hear from lisa ekman of health and disability advocates. lisa? >> good morning.thank you, mark. thank you, steve, for that great presentation. i'm going to, um, start off by talking a little bit about the importance of the social security disability insurance program to people with disabilities. it is vitally important. it provides critical income support, um, for many people with disabilities and their families. in fact, it lifts many people out of poverty. um, almost half of ssdi beneficiaries rely on these critical income benefits for more than 90% of their total income. it is the one thing that keeps many people with disabilities from leading lives of abject poverty and homelessness. and i want to share just a couple of very brief stories of some people who receive social security disability insurance benefits where in both cases it did actually prevent them from being homeless. the first is a man named henry, and he, um, was in his 50s. he had severe cardiac problems, had worked in the insurance industry for a very long time, paid into the social security sy