The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ Disability Compensation (DC) program provides disability benefits to nearly one in four U.S. military veterans and has annual expenditures of $77 billion. We examine how the receipt of DC benefits affects the employment decisions of Vietnam‐era veterans, making use of variation in eligibility resulting from a 2001 policy change that increased access to the program for veterans who served with “boots on the ground” in the Vietnam theater but not for other veterans of that service era. We find that the policy‐induced increase in program enrollment decreased labor force participation and induced a substantial switch from wage employment to self‐employment. The latter finding suggests that an exogenous increase in income allowed some older veterans to realize an ambition to start their own business or to retire gradually through self‐employment. We estimate that one in three veterans who entered the DC program due to this policy change left the labor force, estimates in the same range as those from recent studies of the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program, and that 30 percent of marginal recipients transitioned into self‐employment.

中文翻译：

---

为自己工作，为他人工作还是根本不工作？残疾福利如何影响老年退伍军人的就业决定

美国退伍军人事务部的残疾补偿（DC）计划为近四分之一的美国退伍军人提供了残疾补助，每年的支出为770亿美元。我们研究了DC福利的获得如何影响越南时代退伍军人的就业决定，并利用了2001年政策变更导致的资格变化，该政策变更增加了在越南“地面穿靴子”服务的退伍军人的计划获取范围剧院，但不适用于该服务时代的其他退伍军人。我们发现，政策导致的计划入学人数增加减少了劳动力的参与，并导致了从有薪就业向自雇的重大转变。后一项发现表明，收入的外生性增长使一些年长的退伍军人实现了开办自己的企业或通过自谋职业逐渐退休的雄心。我们估计，由于这项政策变更而进入DC计划的退伍军人中有三分之一离开了劳动力队伍，其估计范围与最近对社会保障残疾保险（SSDI）计划的研究得出的范围相同，并且有30％的边际接受者过渡到自营职业。