Today, Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) filed Amendment 667 to the Senate Budget Resolution, in order to create a deficit-neutral reserve fund to “ensure that individuals do not simultaneously receive unemployment compensation and disability insurance benefits”.

Read CCD’s Fact Sheet about Amendment 667 (PDF or plain text).

As the U.S. Senate considers its 2016 budget resolution, cuts to benefits for people who receive both SSDI and Unemployment Insurance (UI) are on the table are.

Senators Flake and Manchin’s amendment would cut these extremely modest but vital benefits. More amendments are possible. Action on amendments and the budget resolution is expected today and tomorrow.

SSDI and UI are earned benefits, paid for by workers and their employers. Workers who qualify for both should be able to receive the insurance benefits they have earned. SSDI beneficiaries who try to work should not be treated differently from other American workers. UI should be there for them when they need it.

75 national organizations (PDF) have opposed harmful cuts to concurrent SSDI and UI benefits. Get the facts and take action!

Today and tomorrow, call your Senators. Tell them:

• Please oppose Flake Amendment 667 to the Senate Budget and any similar amendments to cut Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) for people who also receive Unemployment Insurance.
• Any cuts to Social Security or SSDI would harm the financial security of people with significant disabilities and their families.
• SSDI beneficiaries who try to work should not be treated differently from other American workers. Unemployment Insurance should be there for them when they need it. It’s fair and it’s right.
• For decades, Congress has passed bipartisan laws to open up employment opportunities for SSDI beneficiaries. Cutting SSDI for people who also receive Unemployment Insurance would instead penalize SSDI beneficiaries who have tried to work — creating new, harmful work disincentives.

On March 9, the President announced our TechHire initiative in a speech to the National League of Cities. To kick off TechHire, 20 regions, with over 150,000 open technology jobs in 2014 and more than 300 employer partners, announced plans to work together to create more fast track tech training opportunities. The President is challenging communities across the country to follow their lead.

As a part of this announcement, the Administration announced a commitment to make $100 million available through the Department of Labor to support innovative approaches to moving lower skilled workers with barriers to training and employment on the fastest paths to mid- to high-skill information technology jobs in high growth jobs in industries like healthcare, advanced manufacturing, financial services, and other in-demand sectors. Each grantee will agree to develop strategies that serve one or more groups of individuals with barriers to employment, including those with child care needs, people with disabilities, people with limited English proficiency, and disconnected youth, among others.

Read the fact sheet on this opportunity (PDF). The Administration plans to have a full application ready by the end of 2015.

Source: Institute on Disability / UCED

You are invited to participate in the Disability and Employment: Research, Policy, & Practice Webinar on Tuesday, April, 28, 2015 from 2:00 – 3:00 pm ET.

The persistently low employment rates among people with disabilities in the United States are accompanied by consistently high rates of participation in safety net programs. As funding for employment related services is limited, people with disabilities who wish to access employment services may face either delays in access or scarcity of available options. The lack of coordination between available employment services and safety net programs is an additional cause for concern.

In efforts to address issues surrounding persistently low employment rates among people with disabilities, the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Employment Policy and Measurement (EPM-RRTC) at the Institute on Disability (IOD) is gathering compelling evidence-based information on the effectiveness of past employment promotion initiatives and efficient ways of measuring and monitoring employment outcomes as innovative policy options are tested and implemented.  [Read more…]

CareerACCESS, a community-driven proposed program of reforms to SSI that will provide an alternative benefits program for youth with disabilities, has a new blog that features stories of youth with disabilities across the US and their experience with SSI.

One recent installment is called “‘Only Employed, Responsible People Wanted’ – Working Around SSI toward A Career” by Justin Harford. Check out Justin’s story below, and read more stories and take action at: www.ourcareeraccess.org/index.php/blog.

“Only Employed, Responsible People Wanted”- Working Around SSI toward A Career

By Justin Harford

A lot could be said about the hours of sleep that I lost growing up as a youth with blindness whose greatest fear was failure, and relegation to dependence and poverty on SSI.

My name is Justin Harford, and I am the Disability Community Advocate at FREED Center for Independent Living in Grass Valley, California. Much of my work involves policy and community organizing for positive systemic change at the local grassroots level for people with disabilities like myself. I am proud to be gainfully employed for the first time in my life, and grateful to be in a job that I believe in and enjoy. I hope to work my way up, and to strive for a career which constantly challenges me and expands my outlook on the world.

I spent five years as a student at the University of California Berkeley between 2007 and 2012, graduating with my Bachelor of Arts degree in Latin American History, with a minor in Spanish Literature. I directed a class on LaTeX for three years, a computer markup system for mathematicians and scientists to publish documents with arithmetical notation. I intensively studied Spanish, as well as Portuguese. I put together a 50 page senior thesis, using over 500 pages of primary source Spanish language materials, on the history of the blind in Chilean society 1920-1950. During these years, SSI was both a source of support, and anxiety.  [Read more…]

The Senate has passed the Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) Act of 2014 and it is now headed to the President’s desk. NCIL has supported the ABLE Act since it was first introduced in 2006. The ABLE Act was designed to allow individuals and families to save funds in an ABLE Account to better support our health and well-being, our employment, our independent living, and our self-sufficiency over time. The ABLE Act amends Section 529 of the Internal Revenue Code to make these accounts possible. Originally, ABLE Accounts were to be open to anyone applying for or participating in the Supplemental Security Income program (SSI).

Unfortunately, the ABLE Act, as passed, only applies to people who acquire a disability before age 26. People who acquire a disability after that age will not be helped by the bill at all. NCIL is disappointed that Congress chose to gut this long-standing priority of the disability community. However, NCIL members may find the following information helpful in understanding the new law.

Research shows that living with a long-term disability means having routine, higher, out of pocket costs. The ABLE Act allows families that include someone with a disability under the age of 26 to be able to save and pay for these needs.

The National Disability Institute (NDI) has created a list of 10 items about ABLE accounts that individuals with disabilities and their families should know:

1. What is an ABLE account?

ABLE Accounts, which are tax-advantaged savings accounts for individuals with disabilities and their families, will be created as a result of the passage of the ABLE Act of 2014. Income earned by the accounts would not be taxed. Contributions to the account made by any person (the account beneficiary, family and friends) would not be tax deductible.

2. Why the need for ABLE accounts?

Millions of individuals with disabilities and their families depend on a wide variety of public benefits for income, health care and food and housing assistance. Eligibility for these public benefits (SSI, SNAP, Medicaid) require meeting a means or resource test that limits eligibility to individuals to report more than $2,000 in cash savings, retirement funds and other items of significant value. To remain eligible for these public benefits, an individual must remain poor. For the first time in public policy, the ABLE Act recognizes the extra and significant costs of living with a disability. These include costs, related to raising a child with significant disabilities or a working age adult with disabilities, for accessible housing and transportation, personal assistance services, assistive technology and health care not covered by insurance, Medicaid or Medicare.  [Read more…]