If officials in the Donald Trump administration get their way, hundreds of thousands of older Americans could soon be left out in the cold as disability payments are curtailed due to eligibility changes.
According to an exclusive report from the Washington Post, a plan coming out of the White House would make a radical change to disability eligibility at age 50 by “eliminating age as a factor entirely or raising the threshold to age 60.”
As the Post report points out, “It is unclear exactly how many Americans could lose access to disability benefits under the proposed rule changes.” However, a recent study stated, “If the proposed rule reduced eligibility for the disability program by 10 percent, 750,000 fewer people would receive benefits for all or part of the next decade,” adding that, “80,000 fewer widows and children would receive benefits because of the loss in eligibility of a spouse or parent.”
Alerted to the possible rule change, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) remarked, “This is Phase One of the Republican campaign to force Americans to work into old age to access their earned Social Security benefits, and represents the largest cut to disability insurance in American history. Americans with disabilities have worked and paid into Social Security just like everybody else, and they do not deserve the indignity of more bureaucratic water torture to get what they paid for.”
Michelle Spadafore, a senior attorney at New York Legal Assistance Group, said the changes being proposed would be devastating.
“Any small cut in that delicate balance can be the difference between paying your utilities that month,” she claimed.
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