Red State Workers Could Lose Out on Disability Benefits as Trump Administration Rewrites Eligibility Rules [View all]

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(ProPublica) It’s never been easy to qualify for Social Security disability benefits. Christopher Tincher knows this firsthand.

Tincher began his working life in a coal mine in Aflex, Kentucky, as a teenager in the 1980s. As mines across the region shuttered, he turned to scraping grills at a Hardee’s, then cleaning office buildings at night, then stocking shelves and changing tires at a Walmart in Arkansas. Later, he was hired by a nearby town’s wastewater department. Often, he had to wade into sewage to fix equipment and clean out feces, needles and tampons entering the treatment facility.

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Tincher was now a manual laborer on one leg, but he was denied disability benefits by the Social Security Administration the following year. On average, 65% of applicants are rejected, though some successfully appeal.

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Tincher is now 55, and reaching that age marker helped him qualify, in June, for just over $1,500 a month in Social Security Disability Insurance benefits. A three-time Donald Trump voter, he was approved just in the nick of time.

That’s because the Trump administration is rewriting the disability eligibility rules, ostensibly to modernize the program, in ways that will make it even harder for aging blue-collar workers like Tincher to get benefits. Hundreds of thousands just like him would become ineligible for aid. ....................(more)

https://www.propublica.org/article/social-security-disability-eligibility-trump-red-states