“Playing the Game”: How Supplemental Security Income and Social Security Disability Insurance Recipients Cope with Administrative Burdens

Administrative burden can impede access to programs for individuals with diminished material and cognitive resources. Research shows that individuals may respond to burdens differently—they are either deterred, express grievances, seek information, or leverage relationships and resources to access benefits. This work overlooks disabled Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) recipients, an important vulnerable population, and primarily uses a top-down deductive approach. We depart from this approach through a bottom-up, inductive, grounded theory analysis of the strategies SSI and SSDI participants use to maintain access to programs. Participants describe their relationship with the Social Security Administration as a “game” in which they strive to meet their basic needs although the agency seeks to minimize benefits. They described strategies to maintain SSI, SSDI, and other public benefits as “playing the game.” Strategies included working off the books, underreporting hours, and vigilantly monitoring benefits to catch overpayments.