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Funding and publicity needed for Ticket to Work, says panel
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June 10, 2003 -- Full funding -- and a public information campaign -- are among recommendations to Congress from the advisory panel for the Ticket to Work program. "The Panel again recommends that Congress urge SSA to develop an immediate, coordinated national marketing and public education campaign to explain the array of programs.
"Insufficient funding and administrative resources have been dedicated to implementation of the Ticket and other programs," says the Panel's report. "When Congress authorized the Social Security Administration to administer the Ticket and other grant programs, it did not provide additional administrative resources for SSA to support the new duties and programs."
The Third Annual Interim report to Congress has not been officially released yet, but can be downloaded as a Microsoft Word document at http://www.ssa.gov/work/panel/panel_documents/reports.html
Read the Panel's other official documents.
The report includes finding and recommendations of the Panel regarding implementation of the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act by the Social Security Administration and other Federal agencies whose programs have an effect on the employment of people with disabilities.
The Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act was passed by a vote of 99 to 0 in the Senate and by an overwhelming majority in the House of Representatives; in its third year of implementation, says Advisory Committee Chair Sarah Wiggins Mitchell, "millions of 'tickets' were mailed out to beneficiaries and thousands of people assigned their ticket to an employment network to receive services." Yet far too few people know about the program, says the report.