From a press release:
House Committee on Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith (MO-08), Social Security Subcommittee Chairman Ron Estes (KS-04), and Work & Welfare Subcommittee Chairman Darin LaHood (IL-16) announced today that the Subcommittees on Social Security and Work & Welfare will hold a joint hearing to discuss barriers to work and how policymakers can support opportunities for individuals with disabilities to establish, renew, or strengthen their connection to the workforce. The hearing will take place on Tuesday, September 9, 2025, at 2:00 PM in 1100 Longworth House Office Building.
Republican ideas for removing “barriers” have sometimes included time limited disability benefits. I think they regard the lack of compulsion to return to work as a “barrier.”I do not expect anything coming out of this hearing that would genuinely help anyone drawing benefits.
By the way, when are they going to reschedule that hearing with the Commissioner? Ever?
4 comments:
I'm sure the corporate tax rate not being low enough will be identified by this brain trust as a "barrier" to work. 🙄🙄🙄🥱
Frank is too busy with with his prayer team to testify before Congress.
We know it's only a matter of time before Republicans put a 2 year time limit on disability benefits.
There are some bipartisan things that could help here, like allowing employers to make retirement contributions to ABLE accounts instead of 401ks, and increasing the SSI asset limit. But these both have costs, and there are many Rs who won't support anything that scores worse than cost-neutral.
Unfortunately, the thing that would help SSI recipients the most and that would make the program easier for SSA to administer (increasing the earned income disregard) seems to have support only from Ds.
On the DI side, a taper off of benefits starting at SGA rather than a suspension of benefits would probably increase work somewhat; protection from overpayments might help even more. OPs are an enormous work disincentive. But none of this will move the needle too far; few of the people who are disabled enough to get benefits are going to go back to work no matter what. Most beneficiaries are in their 50s or 60s and many die within a few years of award. They aren't strangers to work; they did enough to get insured. If there were a job out there they could easily get and do, they would have gotten and done it.
Other idea: extend provisional benefits in EXR cases for longer than 6 months--make it 12 months, or as long as it takes for SSA to make the decision. But I don't expect this to be discussed at the hearing...probably a lot of talk about PIE from the Rs, and beating up on SSA about overpayment collection from the Ds.
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