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Table 7.Predicted Herfindahl-Hirschman and occupational dissimilarity indices of the employed population underalternative occupational-choice modelsEstimated populationSSI recipient modelNon-SSI recipient models with—No disability Any disability Work disabilityPanel A: Herfindahl-Hirschman indexSSI recipients 1,089.90 898.38 865.27 876.76Non-SSI recipientsNo disability 915.44 774.93 765.34 735.94Any disability 865.66 825.35 795.82 797.31Work disability 863.78 827.50 786.49 786.49Panel B: Dissimilarity index of comparison group and modelSSI recipients 0.00 16.70 12.14 10.44Non-SSI recipientsNo disability 25.82 0.00 8.40 6.89Any disability 20.66 6.61 0.00 2.07Work disability 18.83 7.24 3.77 0.00SOURCE: Author's calculations using the 2007 American Community Survey.NOTE: Herfindahl-Hirschman indices are calculated for each row group's estimated distribution under the column group's occupationalchoicemodel. Dissimilarity indices are calculated between the estimated distribution of the row group under the model based on the columngroup and the column group's actual distribution. This is the proportion of the two groups that would need to change occupations for there tobe parity between the occupational distributions of the two groups.differences between the occupational distributions ofeach of the control populations and the SSI populationare halved. Only 17 percent of the populationwould need to change occupations to equalize thedistributions of those receiving SSI and those withouta disability under the no-disability model. Under thedisability and work-disability models, the difference iseven smaller (12 percent and 10 percent of the population,respectively). Under the working SSI recipientmodel, the difference between the working SSI populationand each group is larger than under the othermodels, and the difference from the actual distributionis much smaller for each group.Predicted Occupations of UnemployedSSI RecipientsAlthough the above results present the current occupationaldistributions and how much any differencescan be explained away by demographic characteristics,human capital, and disability type, much ofSSA’s interest in return to work is in getting those notemployed into the labor force and employed. Estimatesof the occupations the unemployed and non–laborforce participant (non-LFP) SSI recipients would haveif they were employed under each of the models aboveare presented in Tables 8 and 9, respectively. Theseestimates do not consider any effect the return to workwould have on the larger distribution of occupationsor for selection into the labor force. As a result, theseestimates may under or overstate the proportion ofrecipients in each occupational group.The predicted occupations of unemployed andnon-LFP SSI recipients are very similar to those ofworking SSI recipients under any occupational-choicemodel (see Table 3 for comparison). For the unemployedSSI population, the most common predictedoccupations are in office and administrative support(14 percent to 16 percent); sales and related occupations(about 11 percent); and construction, extraction,maintenance, and repair occupations (10 percent to12 percent). Non-LFP SSI recipients are also wellrepresented in these occupations. As with the workingSSI population, many unemployed and non-LFPSSI recipients are predicted to work in building andgrounds cleaning and maintenance or food preparationand serving-related occupations. In fact, serviceoccupations comprise about 30 percent of predictedoccupations in all but the no-disability occupationalchoicemodel for both groups.The HHI values for the predicted occupationaldistributions are similar to those of the workingSSI population reported in Table 7 (see Table 10,Social Security Bulletin • Vol. 69 • No. 3 • 2009 59