UW Madison Center for Financial Security and the Retirement & the Disability Research Center are funding a statewide research project with Wisconsin farmers to better understand how they plan for retirement and interact with the Social Security Administration (SSA). The study is conducted by University of La Crosse assistant professor Marissa Eckrote-Nordland in the Department of Economics at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.
In addition to helping inform decisions on staffing and office closures of SSA offices in rural communities, farmers and how they interact with SSA are of interest to SSA for many reasons.
First, farming is an extremely physically demanding job that increases the odds that farmers will need to claim Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) at some point in their career. Second, farmers are often asset rich but retirement savings poor. For this reason, they may rely more on Social Security to fund their retirement rather than relying on private savings or company-sponsored retirement plans. This survey will ask Wisconsin farmers about financial planning for retirement, interactions with the Social Security Administration (SSA), and farm continuation/succession planning. The data collected will be analyzed to see how farmers interact with SSA and if this interaction is affected by how far their farm is from the nearest SSA field office. In addition, the survey will collect information on farm owners’ interactions with UW-Extension. It will analyze if these Extension interactions affect how farmers engage with SSA. The findings from this study will help to inform decisions regarding outreach in farm communities.
Below is the link to the survey for farmers interested to participate in the research project The project is funded by a grant from the Center for Financial Security at UW-Madison. Individuals who complete the survey will be prompted at the end to click on a second survey link that will enter them to win one of ten $25 Visa gift cards.
Link to the survey: https://uwlax.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8uzcKcDKJtgbXgy