Removing Barriers to Work for Disabled Americans Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. SMITH of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1438, I call up the bill (H.R. 8884) to amend title II of the Social Security Act to reauthorize demonstration authority for the disability insurance program, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

The Clerk read the title of the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 8884, the Removing Barriers to Work for Disabled Americans Act, introduced by our colleague from Georgia, Representative Austin Scott.

Many Americans that are living with disabilities want to enter the workforce and seek gainful employment. In fact, an estimated 60 percent of Americans who receive benefits under the Social Security Disability Insurance program have stated a desire to return to work. Yet less than 1 percent leave the disability insurance program each year for a job. That is a gigantic gap between the number of disabled Americans who want to work and the number who successfully return to work.

The Removing Barriers to Work for Disabled Americans Act seeks to shrink that gap by simply restoring the Social Security Administration's authority to test drive solutions that can empower more of our fellow Americans to get back to work.

Up until 2022, the SSA had such authority to run demonstration projects on improving work outcomes. With that authority expired and with so many disabled Americans still unable to successfully navigate the current program, we have to find a better way forward.

In fact, some of the challenges cited for why so few SSDI beneficiaries successfully return to the workforce are confusing rules of the road for eligibility, that and a fear of overpayments and benefit cliffs.

Just so we do not forget why we should be focused on this issue, at a hearing of the Ways and Means Social Security and Work and Welfare Subcommittees in September, we heard from a witness, a former beneficiary, about how the work he found helped give his life real purpose and a different outlook. He was talking about the dignity of work, and that is what this bill will help deliver.

Representative Scott has been a long-time--and I would say long-time, tireless champion for Purple Heart veterans. Many of them wish to return to work but cannot afford the severe restrictions placed on their work status. I commend Mr. Scott for expanding his bill to allow the SSA's demonstration authority for so many impacted individuals, including blind Americans. He has identified a commonsense solution and is fighting to see it come to pass, just as it did through the Ways and Means Committee with bipartisan support.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. AUSTIN SCOTT of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, the first thing I will do is thank Chairman Smith and his staff for working with me to get this piece of legislation to the floor. I also thank the many bipartisan cosponsors of the Purple Heart Freedom to Work Act.

Mr. Speaker, I want Americans to know how this piece of legislation originated. I was taking a young man, a marine, hunting several years ago. That marine stepped on a pressure plate and lost both legs. We were having a discussion as we were in the vehicle headed to the farm that we were going to hunt, and I asked him if there were things that we could help him with.

We had a candid conversation. He said that he wanted to go back to work. He worked at the local auto parts store and wanted to work more hours, but if he made $1 more than, at that time, the $1,100 a month, he would lose 100 percent of his Social Security benefits.

Here, we have a young, combat-wounded man who lost both legs and wants to work. Let me tell you something: If you want to help a disabled veteran, let them get out of the house and go back to work. Let them. This doesn't force anybody to do anything. It is voluntary.

The idea that if a combat-wounded veteran wants to go back to work and they make $1 more than some imaginary number, then their family has less money at the end of the month than if they didn't work is ridiculous. So we wrote the Purple Heart Freedom to Work Act. I have had broad bipartisan support for that bill, but I have not been able to get it through and signed into law.

We went back, under Chairman Smith's leadership and with his team, and looked at other ways to do this. This authority was there, up to and until 2022, I believe. President Biden had it and could have done it. Other Presidents have had the ability to do it. We are simply asking that we do the same thing, give the same authority that we have had in the past so that we can do pilot projects.

It doesn't force anybody to do anything. It gives people who are currently receiving Social Security disability benefits the ability to go back to work if they voluntarily choose to, in order to have a little more money at the end of the month instead of less. That is what it does.

I don't understand the objection from the other side in allowing people to go back to work and not lose 100 percent of their government benefits. It is something that we, as Republicans, have pressed for across a wide range of benefits, and that is to get rid of the cliff.

We are not trying to force anybody to do anything. We are simply giving people the ability to go back to work, not lose 100 percent of their Social Security benefits, and have more money left over at the end of the month.

After my conversation with that young man, that young marine, that warrior, I honestly couldn't believe it. I came to D.C., and I met with the lawyers. I said, this can't be right. This defies logic. We went through the law. The lawyers told me he was right, and we wrote the bill.

I am going to tell you, I am disappointed that my Democratic colleagues are taking the position on the floor that they have with this. We want people to be able to go back to work. This originated with a marine who stepped on a pressure plate, lost both legs, and wants to go back to work. If they go back to work, they lose 100 percent of their Social Security benefits if they make $1 more than this imaginary threshold, which is not enough for them to live on.

I think this is a wonderful piece of legislation. I thank the chairman and his staff for helping us find a way to solve this problem. I think the President will do a pilot project--if you give him the authority--that will be very close to the Purple Heart Freedom to Work Act.

Purple Heart Day is coming up August 7. It will be wonderful for us to get this across the finish line and be able to do it on that day for them. I hope my colleagues, in a very bipartisan manner, will support H.R. 8884 and help us remove the barriers to work for disabled Americans.

The same things that will work for our wounded warriors will also work for other Americans, if they choose, if they want, if they volunteer, if they voluntarily want to go back to work and make a little extra money, and not lose 100 percent of their Social Security benefits.

The Purple Heart Freedom to Work, I think it will work for a lot of Americans. We, as Republicans, believe work is good. We know there are a lot of people that are on Social Security disability that want to go back to work. It is voluntary. They will always have more money. They will not have any less money if this is done.

Again, I hope my colleagues, in a very bipartisan manner, will support H.R. 8884.

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Mr. SMITH of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I have no additional speakers and am prepared to close.

Mr. Speaker, we have heard some amazing arguments on the floor just now, but one thing that has been crystal clear by the arguments that we have heard in opposition to this bill which helps veterans is simply that the Democratic Party is focused on legislative items that allow them to control Americans.

They want to have 100 percent control over the benefits of Americans. They don't even want to give them the opportunity to have the dignity of work. They said it on the floor today.

I can't believe that they would possibly want to say that they know better for your livelihood than what you do, but that is what the speakers are saying, and that is why they are opposing this bill. That is a shame.

Mr. Speaker, you hear individuals say that it is a risk. The only risk of this bill is simply that my Democratic colleagues can't have 100 percent control over the benefits of veterans who are disabled. This bill allows them to give the opportunity to have the dignity of work and not lose their benefits but to still be able to thrive.

We are focused on the success of the individual, not the fact that the government can control your livelihood.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage this body to support this great piece of legislation that Mr. Austin Scott has worked on for some time to deliver relief for real Americans, for veterans, and not to the Democratic Party, who wants to control their benefits.

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