Democratic leaders in Washington, D.C., have touted a $3.5 trillion spending package aimed at helping to fight poverty. Yet initial drafts have not included proposed reforms to enhance Supplemental Security Income — also known as SSI — that provides benefits to elderly, blind and disabled Americans. Still, advocates have not given up hope that the changes will make it into...

President Joe Biden has invoked Franklin Delano Roosevelt several times as he has implemented sweeping anti-poverty measures to tackle record unemployment and economic turmoil. Hoping to model his legacy on the President who helped the nation climb out of the Great Depression, Biden has spent $1.9 trillion so far on stimulus checks, the expanded child tax credit, and enhanced unemployment...

When COVID-19 began spreading in the U.S. in March 2020, McKale Santin was working at a nursing home in Burlington, Vermont. She and her coworkers didn’t yet know how deadly the virus would become, but she remembers feeling nervous as the first patients got sick and she was asked to examine them with only a surgical mask, not the more...

President Biden on Friday fired Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul, a holdover from the Trump administration who had alienated crucial Democratic constituencies with policies designed to clamp down on benefits and an uncompromising anti-union stance. Saul was fired after refusing a request to resign, White House officials said. His deputy, David Black, who served as the agency’s top lawyer before...

Stimulus payments aren’t supposed to count against eligibility for social insurance programs like disability benefits, but some people might have lost benefits because of too much money in their bank accounts. The Social Security Administration has suspended disability benefits for some Supplemental Security Income recipients because the stimulus payments pushed their bank accounts above the program’s archaic $2,000 limit, according...

For Chantelle James, a registered nurse who lives in the suburbs of Austin, Texas, the push to keep worker's compensation and receive short-term disability benefits has been demoralizing. In August 2020, the 43-year-old tested positive for COVID-19 and was experiencing chest tightness, coughing, congestion, rashes and balance issues. Now, months later, she still can't fully find her footing. "Anytime I...

Jade Dunham was 15 when she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. Since then, she says, she has been on ​“almost every medication on the market for my condition.” The disease is chronic and debilitating, and Dunham’s symptoms are wide-ranging. They affect nearly every routine task she attempts. “My shoulders no longer have cartilage, and I have holes in the humeral...

People are left waiting for years, sometimes even decades, to receive government benefits they’ve paid into their whole life. Disability claimants who have their cases denied and have to go through the appeals process often have no idea when their case will finally be heard. “I had a family member that was waiting on social security disability for eight years”...

Two new rules from the Trump administration will make it harder for workers and other disabled individuals to collect Social Security disability insurance and supplemental security income benefits. The first rule, which took effect Dec. 16, changes the disability appeals process by allowing internal agency lawyers who work for the Social Security Administration, or SSA, to conduct disability hearings that have traditionally been...

Top Democrats are warning that the problems afflicting the United States Postal Service pose a threat to more than voting rights — a slowdown in services, they say, will also hurt seniors who rely on letter carriers for Social Security checks, medications and other critical mail. Already, concerns about prescription drug deliveries are surfacing — but how about Social Security...