Removing Barriers to Work for Disabled Americans Act

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, at a time when Americans are dealing with skyrocketing prices and vulnerable populations like seniors and people with disabilities are struggling to get help with their Social Security benefits because this administration has created a customer service crisis through reckless staffing cuts, it is shameful that Republicans have chosen to bring H.R. 8884 to the floor. This bill won't lower costs, won't improve customer service, and won't make it easier for people with disabilities to access the benefits they have earned. Instead, it opens the door to cutting those benefits while making SSA's customer service crisis even worse.

H.R. 8884, the Removing Barriers to Work for Disabled Americans Act, aims to remove barriers to employment faced by individuals receiving Social Security Disability Insurance, or SSDI, benefits. It tries to do this by authorizing the Social Security Administration to conduct demonstration projects designed to test program changes that may encourage work.

Let me be clear that Democrats strongly support the goal of reducing unnecessary barriers for disabled Americans who want to explore returning to work. Over the years, Democrats many times have supported giving SSA this demonstration authority. However, the bill before us today tries to accomplish this worthwhile goal in the worst possible way.

Instead of protecting beneficiaries, it hands the Trump administration broad new authority to experiment with Social Security disability benefits with virtually no meaningful guardrails.

First, let me be clear about what Social Security disability benefits are for. SSDI supports some of the most vulnerable Americans who have severe and long-lasting medical impairments that prevent them from being able to work at a level needed to financially support themselves.

SSDI is an earned benefit, with the average beneficiary having worked and paid into the system for 22 years before becoming disabled. It also has stringent eligibility criteria. To qualify, applicants must provide extensive medical evidence and undergo a rigorous eligibility determination process. Many applicants are initially denied and must appeal a process that often takes a year or more. Even after all levels of appeal, SSA typically finds only about one in three applicants eligible. SSDI benefits are extremely low, at an average of about $20,000 a year.

Most SSDI beneficiaries could not survive without these monthly payments, and that is why we must ensure that any potential change to the program does not put those benefits at risk. Yet, this bill explicitly leaves that possibility on the table. Rather than protecting earned disability benefits, it gives the administration broad discretion to test policies that could reduce them.

This isn't some abstract policy debate. Here is what this could look like in the real world.

Picture this: You have been on Social Security disability for the past 10 years after a devastating car accident rendered you unable to work and support yourself. Your monthly SSDI check isn't much, but it is the reason you can pay your bills and keep food on the table. Then, one day, the Social Security Administration contacts you about an opportunity that sounds promising--a demonstration program that will make it easier for you to get a part-time job while remaining on SSDI.

This sounds great to you because it could mean some extra income for you and your family. You sign up and start working only to realize that you are no better off financially because for every dollar you make at your new job, you lose a dollar in SSDI benefits.

After a few months, the demands of the new job start taking a toll on your health, and it becomes clear that it isn't sustainable. You contact SSA to revoke your participation in the demonstration so that you can start receiving your full SSDI benefit amount again, but SSA doesn't reinstate your benefits right away.

Two weeks later, you still have to call SSA's 1-800 number every day, trying to get your benefits back. Every time, you are on hold for more than an hour. Even when you do get through to a staff member, they say there is a backlog. No one can tell you when you will get your check. Rent is due in a few days. You don't have the money. You feel desperate.

That is exactly the kind of outcome this bill fails to protect. Here is why. The problem is simple. This bill only guarantees that an individual's total income will not be reduced due to participation in a demonstration project. That deceptive phrasing does not guarantee that your Social Security disability benefits won't be cut or reduced because you are earning money at a part-time job.

These are two very different things. The empty promise of no reduction in total income leaves the administration with enormous discretion over people's earned benefits.

This isn't a hypothetical concern. The Trump administration has repeatedly tried to cut disability benefits and make it harder for disabled Americans to qualify. They have shown us exactly what they want to do given the opportunity.

During the first Trump administration, President Trump repeatedly tried to throw disabled people off their benefits by making it harder to qualify and subjecting them to more frequent continuing disability reviews. He proposed a budget plan that tried to slash disability benefits by $50 billion over 10 years, and a key part of that plan was to push beneficiaries into demonstration programs.

No past demonstrations had indicated that savings of any level, let alone $50 billion, could be possible without punitive measures to cut beneficiaries who can't return to work.

Just last year, the Trump administration was reportedly considering a plan to eliminate age as a factor in deciding whether someone is unable to work and eligible for SSDI, which could have blocked an estimated 750,000 people from receiving benefits. Thankfully, this plan was dropped after enormous public outcry, but that shouldn't be enough to convince us that this administration isn't still gunning to slash benefits.

An administration that has a track record of trying to cut Americans' earned disability benefits should not be given any new authority to conduct open-ended experiments that could reduce benefits.

This couldn't come at a worse time. Thanks to the administration cutting over 7,000 staff at Social Security, our constituents are waiting for hours on the phone and facing extremely long backlogs when trying to get their issues resolved.

SSDI beneficiaries rely on their benefits every month to make ends meet. They can't afford delays or roadblocks to getting the full amount of the benefits they have earned.

To make matters worse, this bill would require any new demonstration programs to be funded by SSA's operating budget, the same budget that supports the agency's customer service. In other words, this bill asks SSA to take money away from serving the public to run experiments that could jeopardize people's disability benefits.

When the Ways and Means Committee marked up this bill last month, Ranking Member John Larson offered a commonsense amendment that would have addressed these concerns by requiring demonstration projects to be funded not by SSA's customer service budget but by the SSDI trust funds, and by adding guardrails to what the Trump administration might do with the demonstration authority.

Those guardrails included ensuring that no one would see their benefits, not just total income but actual benefits, reduced due to participation in a demonstration.

The amendment would also have ensured that no demonstration could be used to deny eligibility for new SSDI applicants and would have required the SSA to provide notice and public comments on the details of any planned demonstrations.

These were basic protections to ensure that people with disabilities couldn't lose their earned benefits simply for participating in a demonstration project, yet every Republican voted this down.

If Republicans truly cared about making life better for people on Social Security disability benefits, we would be discussing bills to increase monthly benefits, fix the appeals process so people with disabilities aren't waiting years to get approved for benefits, and fix customer service at SSA by undoing this administration's disastrous staffing cuts.

Instead, Republicans have brought us a bill that gives the Trump administration new authority to experiment with Social Security disability benefits while failing to protect the very people it claims to help. People with disabilities deserve certainty, not experiments with the benefits they have earned.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no,'' and I reserve the balance of my time.

Helping Purple Heart recipients find employment is wonderful and laudable. There is nothing in H.R. 8884 that requires SSA to test the Purple Heart Freedom to Work Act. It is not mentioned in the underlying bill at all.

At a Ways and Means Committee markup, Ranking Member Larson asked the majority if SSA had shared information on what demonstration projects it had planned. They said: No. Trust us.

In fact, when the bill was considered at the Rules Committee a few weeks ago, Ranking Member McGovern made a motion to add a new section to the rule that would have provided for immediate consideration of Representative Scott's Purple Heart bill on the House floor. Republicans all voted ``no'' on this motion, including Representative Scott himself.

If Republicans want to do the Purple Heart bill, let's vote on that bill, not on H.R. 8884, which doesn't even mention Purple Heart recipients.

Mr. Speaker, the risk that this bill poses to vulnerable Social Security disability benefits cannot be overstated. President Trump has tried time and time again to kick people with disabilities off of their benefits, including by pushing people into demonstration programs. This bill would give this administration open-ended authority to do that.

Congress has authorized this kind of SSDI demonstration authority in the past but only after working with SSA to closely review its intended projects and their impacts.

In contrast, the current SSA has not disclosed any information on how it plans to use the SSDI demonstration authority, and Ways and Means Republicans rejected a Democratic amendment that would have required a notice and public comment period for any demonstration before it gets enacted.

The bottom line is that this administration cannot be trusted to not cut people's benefits. These are earned benefits that people with disabilities rely on to make ends meet. This bill puts that lifeline in jeopardy, and that is why this House should reject this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no,'' and I yield back the balance of my time.

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Ms. CHU. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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