Disability benefits

This letter is in response to the Dec. 12 article “Change May Cut Off Disability Recipients.”

Before I became a law student, I worked closely with south Pittsburgh families, many of whom received sole, fixed incomes through Social Security disability insurance. I met numerous Pittsburghers who were unable to work, yet spent years fighting for disability benefits. I saw a system that was difficult enough to access, without an excessive review process that casts doubts on the truth of recipients’ claims.

This proposed rule is yet another instance of the Trump administration undercutting fundamental rights under the guise of accurate reporting. Just this past year, the Supreme Court found that the Department of Commerce gave a false, pretextual reason for attempting to include a citizenship question on the 2020 census. The department’s true goal was to discourage response rates within largely Hispanic and immigrant communities for the purposes of political redistricting.

While it may be a far cry to say that the agency is similarly lying about its reasons for increasing benefit reviews, it has to know that the real effect of the rule would be that it would cut off more SSDI recipients who depend on it as their sole source of income.

Disability benefits are difficult enough to receive, and the rule would make it more burdensome for recipients who may already have difficulty completing the complex paperwork and collecting the extensive, requisite documentation. This proposed rule comes off as nothing more than an attempt to punish individuals whose financial autonomy is tied to their SSDI benefits. ALEXANDER G. THOMAS

Friendship