rachel greszler and roe me that botch cha, your work at heritage has been instrumental in the cause of social security/disability reform. both staffers and legislators, as you probably know, rely on your analyses, and when reform does come, your great work will have advance ared the cause significantly. and kim hildred, your work on transitional benefits was a critical component to my own legislation. we all know the challenges of the social security/disability insurance program. grown far too large, well past the rate of demographics. there's a lack of program integrity, and those who should recover never leave the program. but i want to highlight today two other specific concerns with social security disability. first, the effect of social security disability on communities, what might be called the disability tipping point and, second, on ways to better help those who can recover return to work. a dynamic of the disability program that's sometimes underappreciated is just how regional and concentrated it's become. be in arkansas we have the third highest rate of social security disa

and our final panelist is rachel greszler, she's at the center of data analysis at the heritage foundation. if her current role rachel focuses on social security disability insurance, tax and pension policies. prior to joining the heritage foundation, rachel spent seven years as a senior economist on the staff of the joint economic committee where she focused on similar issues. so let's start with romina. >> thank you, terry. the bipartisan budget deal that passed last week did one thing right. it prevented automatic benefit cuts for disability beneficiaries. but it failed to make substantial reforms to make the program work better for the beneficiaries that it serves and also for the taxpayeres who fun it. it only included very minor changes to deter fraud and reduce overpayments in the disability program. beyond that it also included one demonstration project to test out a reform proposal that some believe will increase work participation among disability program beneficiaries. my remarks today will explore this demonstration project in greater depth and in particular i will try to answe

rachel greszler: i think the recent budget deal shows this is a difficult political topic. they showed a few small changes and said, look, we did things to solve social security and we are paying for it. really all they did is kick the can down the road and steal money from social security and make both programs worse off in the long run. while it's like we have some time, the same thing is going to happen come 2022 with disability is running out of money again. they're so far has not been an initiative to do any real reform on this rather than to try to turn merge the two programs. the further we push them back, the more likely we are to see a tax increase and nothing is going to change the problems that exist within it. kim hildred: i would agree. the challenges and complexity and lack of urgency now with the new budget deal that passed for sure. there is not a coming together of parties or even constituents to try to tackle some of these very difficult challenges that the program faces, not only in full of long-term having benefits being paid, but also in terms of one of

rachel greszler and romina boccia, our work has been instrumental.eat work will have advanced the work significantly. and kim hildred, your work was a critical element to my own legislation. we know the challenges of the social security disability insurance program. it's grown far too large, well past the rate of demographics. there's a lack of program integrity and those who should recover never leave the program. but i want to highlight today two other specific concerns with social security disability. first, the effect of social security disability on communities, what might be called the disability tipping point. and second on ways to better help those who can recover return to work. a dynamic of the disability program that's sometimes under appreciated is how regional and concentrated it's become. in arkansas we have the third highest rate of social security disability usage, only behind west virginia and alabama. about 7.5% of the working age population in my state population in my state collects disability benefits. by contrast, the dakotas, n

and our final panelist is rachel greszler, she's at the center of data analysis at the heritage foundationn her current role, rachel focuses on social security, disability insurance, tax and pension policies. prior to joining the heritage foundation, rachel spent seven years as a senior economist on the staff of the joint economic committee where she focused on similar issues. so let's start with romina. >> thank you, terry. the bipartisan budget deal that passed last week did one thing right. it prevented automatic benefit cuts for disability beneficiaries. but it failed to make substantial reforms to make the program work better for the beneficiaries that it serves and also for the taxpayers who fund it. it only included very minor changes to deter fraud and reduce overpayments in the disability program. beyond that it only included one demonstration project to test out a reform propose that some believe will increase work participation among disability program beneficiaries. my remarks today will explore this demonstration project in greater depth and in particular i will try to answer