Trump SSI Rule Change Targets Disabled Adults Who Live With Families — ProPublica

Now, President Donald Trump’s administration is poised to penalize people like Burton simply for living in the same home as their families, according to four federal officials, internal emails and a federal regulatory listing. The administration is working on a rule change that would deduct the value of a disabled adult’s bedroom from their SSI allotment, even if the family members they live with are poor enough to qualify for food stamps. This would mean slashing the benefits of some of the most low-income SSI recipients by up to a third — about $330 a month in Burton’s case — or ending their support altogether...

 https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-social-security-ssi-disability-benefits-cuts-parents-children

Trump Administration Drops Plan to Cut Social Security Disability Benefits for Older Workers — ProPublica

It was a startling announcement from an often uncompromising senior official in an administration with little history of changing its mind in response to journalistic scrutiny and pressure from advocates for the vulnerable. But that's what Turkish and three other sources say has happened: The Trump administration has decided not to pursue the disability cuts that it has been working on all year — and in fact since at least 2019, when officials during Trump's first term were close to finalizing a similar regulation...

https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-administration-social-security-disability-cuts 

 

MAHA is Project 2025’s Trojan Horse (Conspirituality podcast #259)

We’ve been talking about RFK Jr for years, and even dedicated an entire chapter to him in our 2023 book—and we’re going to keep covering him. Since his power and influence has only grown, and since he’s now in charge of America’s entire health apparatus, there’s no way to avoid it.

This week we catch up on the last few months of MAHA. 

• Derek looks into why he believes Kennedy’s apparatus, despite claims of being about health, is really a cover for Project 2025’s deregulatory agenda. 
• Julian discusses a recent paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine by Covid contrarians Marty Makary and Vinay Prasad, who now both work under Kennedy. 
• Finally, Matthew will contemplate Kennedy’s crude remarks on autism through the lens of disability politics.

Interview: 

https://www.conspirituality.net/episodes/259-maha-is-project-2025-trojan-horse

Aging, disability and poverty-fighting agencies gutted amid HHS layoffs : Shots - Health News : NPR

The layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services slashed the staffs of major federal aging, disability and anti-poverty programs, leaving the future of those programs uncertain...

https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/04/01/g-s1-57716/hhs-layoffs-seniors-disabled-liheap-acl 

 

Unravelling The Telepathy Tapes (Conspirituality podcast episode #241)

One of the top podcasts in the world—even beating out Rogan for a few hours—is popularizing a well-meaning intervention for non-speaking autistic people. Unfortunately, that intervention happens to be a proven failure, and may set autistic and disability rights discourse back by decades.

Filmmaker Ky Dickens’s The Telepathy Tapes podcast delves into the world of Facilitated Communication, in which non-speaking people are believed to miraculously gain access to complex written language after lives of silence. According to Dickson, non-speaking people can also gather in transdimensional spaces and channel spiritual knowledge.

But there’s a problem. Every controlled test shows that the messages produced through letterboards and iPads are coming from the facilitators—not the non-speaking persons.

In this episode, Matthew interviews experts in pseudoscience and autism, including Janyce Boynton, a former (now dissident) practitioner of Facilitated Communication who explains how seductive and promising it was to practice, but how it ultimately steals agency and dignity from the autistic client.

And... this is also a story about parents dealing with crushing levels of unpaid and invisible labour. They are already doing miraculous work. A fantasy is no replacement for true support and recognition.
Interview: 

https://www.conspirituality.net/episodes/241-unravelling-the-telepathy-tapes

 

What Disabled Workers Told Us About Sheltered Workshops — ProPublica

Missouri, however, does little to help sheltered workshop employees make that move — even though getting disabled workers ready for the regular workforce is the goal behind the federal law authorizing subminimum wages. What's more, state officials told me that they would be unconcerned if sheltered workshop employees in Missouri do not "graduate" to the regular workforce for years, or even decades, because they view the state's sheltered workshops as employment programs rather than stepping stones to regular jobs. 

 Ultimately, we decided that there was a story to tell about sheltered workshops in Missouri: The seemingly widespread support among sheltered workshop employees and their families masked the failure of the state to provide them with meaningful employment options...

https://www.propublica.org/article/what-disability-community-told-us-about-sheltered-workshops

Social Security Administration is preparing to bar 500,000 Americans from getting benefits | TheHill

... That is, reflecting congressional intent, the current rules acknowledge that older workers (for example, workers in their 50s) will have more difficulty in adjusting to occupational requirements in the national economy following the onset of a serious disability. SSA's proposed new regulation would likely undo these rules to a large extent, making it harder for older workers to qualify...

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/529016-social-security-administration-is-preparing-to-bar-500000-americans-from

Democrats rally against Trump's cruel proposal to harm Social Security Disability beneficiaries

Donald Trump is systematically chipping away at every government social insurance program, from food stamps to Medicaid and Medicare to Social Security, to advance his cruel agenda. Among the swarm of regulation changes to all these programs is the creation of a new category of beneficiaries for Social Security Disability Insurance, one made up of people who will have to jump through multiple invasive hoops every two years in order to keep their modest benefits. https://www.dailykos.com/story/2020/1/29/1914896/-Democrats-rally-against-Trump-s-cruel-proposal-to-harm-Social-Security-Disability-beneficiaries

Cutting Social Security Disability Benefits Can Backfire Horribly | HuffPost

The Trump administration wants to trim the disability rolls through extra vetting of recipients — possibly repeating a disastrous Reagan-era move. ....
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-disability-benefits_n_5e1e3301c5b650c621e71bbc

Wisconsin GOP withholds accommodations from disabled lawmaker — to force Dems to strip power from their governor - Raw Story:

On Thursday, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Wisconsin Democratic state Rep. Jimmy Anderson is condemning GOP lawmakers' attempt to leverage his physical disability for political power...
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/10/wisconsin-gop-withholds-accommodations-from-disabled-lawmaker-to-force-dems-to-strip-power-from-their-governor/

Buttigieg accuses Trump of faking disability to avoid Vietnam draft

Veteran and 2020 candidate said Trump, who received a deferment for bone spurs, used ‘his privileged status to fake a disability’...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/23/pete-buttigieg-trump-vietnam-war-disability-accusation