President Donald Trump’s administration could be looking to make major changes to the eligibility of those receiving disability benefits, according to people familiar with the plans as reported by The Wall Street Journal.
These changes could have significant impacts on those in red-voting states, Trump’s own supporters, as many of these are particularly reliant on the benefits.
Newsweek contacted the Social Security Administration (SSA) outside of regular working hours via email for comment.
Why It Matters
More than 8 million Americans rely on Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits, according to SSA data.
The insurance provides essential benefits for workers who cannot support themselves with their own earnings and income because they have severe and long-lasting disabilities, which significantly limit their ability to work.
What To Know
The SSA currently evaluates disability claims for SSDI benefits by considering an American’s age, work experience and education to make an assessment of whether they are able to adjust to various types of work.
In the current system, those over 50 are more likely to qualify for benefits as age is deemed a considerable limitation is a person’s ability to adapt to jobs.
However, the Trump administration may be looking to remove age as a factor for eligibility for these benefits altogether, or adjust the threshold to 60, instead of 50, three people close to the plan told the WSJ at the start of October.
A senior administration official told ProPublica anonymously that the White House “does not think that simply being 50 years old is a disability.”
They added that in the 1970s, when the current rules were written, there were many more jobs involving manual labor, but that wasn’t the case today given the boom in digital jobs, and so the official said that workers in their 50s with physical injuries are claiming benefits “when they don’t need to be.”
According to the nonpartisan research institute, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, this move could reduce the share of applicants who qualify for SSDI by 20 percent—the largest cut to SSDI in history.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities noted that the change would specifically harm older workers as nearly 80 percent of disabled workers are 50 or older, and those living in the South and Appalachia.
States that are particularly reliant on the benefits include Arkansas, Kentucky, West Virginia, Mississippi and Alabama and other red-voting states, and therefore Trump’s own voters, according to data collected by the center.
It said that this is because these states have higher proportions of workers who have fewer years of formal education and more experience working in physical jobs like manufacturing or mining.
Washington, D.C. think tank Urban Institute reported that the share of older recipients losing eligibility for SSDI benefits could be higher than the overall 20 percent reduction—at a 30 percent.
The institute also reported that this could mean many older workers may have to claim early retirement benefits, reducing their lifetime income by up to 30 percent.
What Happens Next
An official announcement of the changes has yet to be made, and in the meantime, it is not clear when these changes could be implemented or what impact they would have.
