From the Washington Post:
The Social Security Administration has abandoned plans to block thousands of older Americans from qualifying for disability benefits after an uproar that reached senior officials in the Trump White House, according to people familiar with the decision.
The agency is also halting a plan to use modern labor market data to help judge whether disability claimants can work, a project that has cost the federal government more than $350 million so far. The new data would have replaced a long-outdated jobs database that until recently included obsolete occupations such as nut sorters and telephone quotation clerks. …
Jason Turkish — an attorney representing disabled people and co-founder of the advocacy group Alliance for America’s Promise — said SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano and other administration officials assured him in meetings over the past week that the proposal would not move forward. A former Social Security executive familiar with the disability program confirmed that Bisignano has scrapped the proposed rule. …
11 comments:
I take a lot of heat for defending Frank on here. I’ve been called a hack, a paid shill. But this shows you: Frank really cares people!
Frank saw a mob walking toward him. He got ahead of the crowd and he called it a parade. Frank is a front runner. He has enough problems outside his job and the current administration is getting weaker by the second.
As you should he couldn’t care less about anything except his bank account!
Frank actually cares about people with disabilities and their families. That’s why the disability backlog continues to fall from all-time highs under the mismanagement of the last administration. And that’s why the agency is going to thoughtfully pursue vocational rules modernization rather than recycle failed proposals from the past. The guy deserves a lot of credit for this!
Credit should be given where due. The Commissioner made the right call on this issue. There’s more work to do on using the modern jobs data. The parts of the rule that were thinly veiled attempts to deeply cut the number of people who can get the disability benefits were properly rejected.
Hmm - well they’ve scrapped this particular plan- but who’s to say they are not going to say move the grids 5 yrs as opposed to abolish them entirely. I don’t recall exactly what was proposed and then scrapped but maybe changes will be softened after some workshopping. I’d be surprised if this was the last we hear of this. It’s def not super high on the priority list but the Heritage Foundation folks have this in their radar for sure.
SSA could not eliminate age as consideration without Congressional statutory intervention. And shifting the age consideration by 10 years to age 60 clearly undermines the intention/logic of the statute. This plan would have faced significant hurdles in federal court, even with this Supreme Court. How can age only become a factor 2 years from early retirement age? How do you square this with decades of existing regulations and Congressional legislative intent?
Also, we are almost in 2026, not 2016. AI is predicted to eliminate low and semi-skilled work within a few years. When you have all industry experts and CEOs in and outside of tech claiming massive near-term job displacements, it makes zero sense to assert the job market is better for low skill older workers compared to pre-2020 (especially in a potential 2026 recession). They would have also needed to present empirical evidence and competent legal arguments to Courts to justify these massive regulation changes. Implementing these callous reforms would have been a gift to Democrats in 2026 and 2028.
But whether they caved for cynical political reasons or out of the goodness of their hearts -- I do not care. And it appears Frank was listening to some disability advocate groups, which is promising to hear. Take the good news people!
This just tells me that they do not want the opposition to be prepared. The statement saying they are not pursuing these changes simply means they are doing it out of sight. I trust the agency and government less than I trust vending machine sushi.
I will agree with this. He made the right call and did the right thing, for once.
Not according to disability lawyers
Was there really a plan to alter grid regs? Was there ever a legitimate source for this info? Try to find the first hints of this change and you will see the seeds were planted from some....unusual sources....
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