Social Security has posted proposed regulations on removing inability to communicate in English as an education category in determining disability. This is only a proposal. The public can comment on it. Social Security is supposed to consider the comments. Congressional opposition can sometimes head off proposed regulations. Sometimes, the agency change its mind or there's a change of administrations before proposed regulations can be finalized.
Note the following language from the explanation of the proposal which may foreshadow more consequential changes:
The increase in labor force participation by individuals who lack English proficiency may be in part due to the increase in low-skilled work in the national economy. In 2014, our Office of Research, Evaluation, and Statistics (ORES) prepared an Evidence Synthesis consolidating information from research we commissioned and other available research for the purposes of modernizing our vocational regulations. ORES' literature review on the vocational factor of education indicates that with the introduction of new technology replacing moderately skilled workers, there are fewer moderately skilled jobs and higher numbers of low and high skilled jobs.I've given Social Security's link to the "Evidence Synthesis" but I'm not seeing it there.
This could foreshadow changes to Social Security's "grid" regulations used in determining disability that would greatly disadvantage individuals who lack job skills. It could even be a sign that they want to abolish the grid regulations. We should not underestimate the maximalist impulses of the Trump Administration or its willingness to act in the absence of any evidence supporting its actions.
In my experience, I've not seen higher numbers of low skilled jobs. My impression is that the exact opposite is the case. The assembly jobs that used to be widely available to people who can only handle simple work have largely disappeared from the U.S. economy. I've seen nothing else picking up the slack.
So where are all the people working with unemployment so low, filing for new apps lower? Did they all get a skill?
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting to see that Office of Research study, because that office is an official "Federal Statistical Agency," free of political pressure. But I can't find the study anywhere on the Social Security web sites. It's five years old and still unpublished. Maybe it didn't succeed in getting through the usual technical reviews.
ReplyDeleteDo the comments on the proposed regulation have to be in English?
ReplyDeleteTrump's appointee as associate commissioner for retirement and disability policy at SSA, Mark Warshawsky, wants to get rid of the vocational grid entirely: https://www.mercatus.org/expert_commentary/make-social-security-disability-insurance-fairer-and-sustainable-eliminate-grid-SSDI
ReplyDeleteI wonder where all these jobs are myself. All of a sudden there are a million 'ticket checkers' in the national economy even though the job hasn't been updated since 1977.
ReplyDelete