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disabilities
'Monstrous' Trump Rule Change Could Slash Benefits to 400,000 Adults With Down Syndrome and Other Disabilities
"As they push to build a $400 million ballroom, they are stripping disabled Americans of their meager benefits," said one congressional candidate.
Apr 29, 2026
The Trump administration is pushing forward with a new rule that could strip as many as 400,000 low-income adults with disabilities of hundreds of dollars per month.
ProPublica reported on Tuesday that the Trump administration was planning a major rule change to the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, which provides basic income to adults with severe disabilities like Down syndrome and autism and some indigent elderly people who may struggle to support themselves.
The program, which serves around 7.5 million Americans, typically provides payments of around $600-700 per month—enough to help pay for basic needs like food and shelter, but not enough to live on independently, especially for those already struggling due to disabilities. As a result, many SSI recipients still reside with family members.
Under the rule change, ProPublica reported that the administration would "penalize" these individuals "simply for living in the same home as their families, according to four federal officials, internal emails, and a federal regulatory listing."
According to the report:
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... or ending their support altogether.
Kathleen Romig and Devin O’Connor of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explained the proposed rule change in a policy briefing in August:
Currently, very low-income disabled or older people who receive SSI can have their benefits reduced by up to one-third (about $300 a month) if they receive “in-kind support and maintenance,” including a place to stay. Similarly, SSI recipients can have their benefits reduced based on the income of their parents (if they are under 18) or spouse, under the assumption that they will contribute to an SSI beneficiary’s living expenses. However, these reductions don’t apply to beneficiaries who live in a household that receives “public assistance,” including food assistance programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). That’s because households financially precarious enough to qualify for those benefits can’t afford to financially support SSI recipients...
SSI’s public assistance household rule has been updated to reflect the ways struggling families make ends meet—but the Trump administration proposal would return the program to the outdated criteria first established in 1980... This change would ignore the reality that families who receive SNAP have very low incomes—the typical multi-person SNAP household with at least one member who receives SSI has an annual income of around $17,000, well below the poverty line.
According to ProPublica, one woman with Down syndrome in Philadelphia, 22-year-old Shy’tyra Burton, who has struggled to find a job due to her intellectual disability, is expected to see her $994 monthly benefit cut by about $330 a month because she has continued to live with her father, Rondell, a sanitation worker.
He makes about $2,000 a month, or $24,000 annually—well below the federal poverty line for a single parent with multiple children. Even with the SSI payment, which allows Shy’tyra to pay for her own internet and meals, Rondell said that he's "still barely managing."
Using actuarial figures from the Social Security Administration (SSA), which administers the program, ProPublica determined that as many as 400,000 disabled people and indigent elderly people could lose some or all of their benefits.
"These are not people gaming the system," argued Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.), whose state could see more than 57,000 people lose benefits as a result of the cuts.
"Fewer than one in three applicants is approved," he said. "The process takes years and requires medical and vocational evaluations.
"The administration calls this rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse. It is not," he continued. "This policy costs more, helps no one, and punishes families for taking care of their own."
The rule change is being reviewed by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), where it will be subject to editing before being sent back to the Social Security Administration, where it will face a period of public comment.
The OMB is administered by Director Russell Vought, one of the architects of the Heritage Foundation's far-right Project 2025 agenda. In addition to using last year's government shutdown to withhold SNAP benefits from around 42 million Americans and starve blue states of funding for federal programs, he has used the office to push for a full-fledged assault on benefits for the poor, disabled, and elderly, including those administered by the SSA.
Vought reportedly led the charge for the SSA to raise the age threshold for disabled adults receiving Social Security disability insurance from 50 to 60, or to remove age as a factor altogether when determining whether a disabled individual has the capability to work. According to the Urban Institute, the plan could have kicked 750,000 people off their disability payments and reduced payouts by $82 million over the next decade.
The administration ultimately backed off the proposal once it became clear that many of those hurt would be older coal miners and factory workers in red states, some of Trump's core demographics of support. But it is still reportedly soldiering ahead with its plan to cut SSI payments for those with disabilities.
Vought has justified these and other dramatic cuts as part of efforts to make the government more efficient. But ProPublica found that while cutting Burton’s benefit could save taxpayers about $11 per day, it could mean her father is unable to care for her, forcing her into a state facility that costs hundreds of dollars a day in public money.
"The Trump rule would have harmful consequences beyond the loss of benefits and eligibility, creating heartbreaking dilemmas for SSI recipients and their families," explained Romig and O'Connor. "It could discourage families from offering help to their loved ones, for fear of jeopardizing their meager benefits. It could force more people to turn to institutional care because they could no longer afford to live in the community."
Fred Wellman, a military veteran and Democratic candidate for the second congressional district in Missouri—a state where around 6,000 disabled and elderly people could potentially be affected by the proposed cuts—called the policy a “truly monstrous decision” especially in light of a recent Republican proposal for Congress to allocate $400 million for Trump’s White House ballroom project after a court ruled it could not be funded using donations.
"As they push to build a $400 million ballroom, they are stripping disabled Americans of their meager benefits," Wellman said. "Over and over, this administration and the GOP choose cruelty over caring. It’s just sick."
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Trump Launches 'Appalling' Assault on Programs for Children With Disabilities
"No one is forcing Donald Trump to fire the people who make sure students with disabilities can get a good education—he just wants to," said Sen. Patty Murray.
Oct 22, 2025
The Trump administration has launched what advocates, parents, and Democratic members of Congress are calling an unlawful and immoral attack on programs that provide education services to millions of children with disabilities across the United States.
Earlier this month, the administration announced mass firings at the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS), terminations that would hollow out the agency tasked with administering and overseeing programs that support students with disabilities—part of President Donald Trump's effort to abolish the Education Department without congressional approval.
"This reckless and illegal action is another step toward the administration's goal of dismantling the Department of Education," Kathleen Romig, director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, wrote Tuesday. "With this latest action, the Trump Administration is effectively shuttering [the Office of Special Education Programs], which distributed $15 billion in federal grants to schools in 2025."
"These grants," Romig noted, "pay for special education teachers and aides, speech and occupational therapists, assistive technology, screening and early intervention for infants and toddlers, and other critical services and supports that millions of families rely upon."
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said it is "appalling" that the Trump administration is exploiting the ongoing government shutdown to escalate its destruction of the Education Department.
"No one is forcing Donald Trump to fire the people who make sure students with disabilities can get a good education—he just wants to," said Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee.
While a federal judge paused the OSERS firings with a temporary restraining order last week, reports and public comments from Trump officials indicate that the administration's assault on programs that aid students with disabilities is just beginning.
The Washington Post reported Tuesday that the administration is considering placing the Individuals with Disabilities Education (IDEA) Act program under the purview of the Health and Human Services Department, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
More than 15% of students in the US receive special education services. IDEA also provides support to hundreds of thousands of infants and toddlers each year.
Sasha Pudelski, director of advocacy for AASA, the School Superintendents Association, told the Post that "moving special education out of the Department of Education demonstrates a disregard for the educational needs of students with disabilities."
"America's special education students are embedded at every level, in every program that the department oversees," Pudelski added. "It's a step backward for education and for our country."
The National Education Association (NEA), the country's largest teachers union, published an article on Tuesday featuring comments from parents alarmed by the administration's targeting of programs that their kids rely on.
"I'm a proud parent of a neurodivergent student, and I'm heartbroken,” Kim Pinckney, the mother of a child with autism, ADHD, and speech disorders, told NEA Today, the union's news publication. "I am one of those parents with the audacity to love my child and to believe he deserves a free and appropriate education. I am one of millions of parents who have the audacity to believe our children are worthy and that they have their own unique genius that deserves to be unearthed."
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This Disability Pride Month Is About Survival, Not Celebration
This month, skip the slogans. Ask: Who do I know that needs care? Who will I support when the next cut comes? What am I building that lasts beyond this news cycle? Or this election cycle?
Jul 26, 2025
Every July, we’re told to smile for the cameras. Show our pride. Celebrate how far we’ve come.
But what if all we feel is rage?
This year, Disability Pride Month arrives under a government that is actively tearing down the few protections we have left. Programs that kept us out of institutions—gone. Jobs focused on accessibility—eliminated. Community care infrastructure—defunded, dismantled, or disappeared entirely. And somehow, no one’s sounding the alarm. Or perhaps there are too many alarms going off at once, and nobody can distinguish them anymore.
There’s no parade for the disabled workers quietly laid off when Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) offices were shuttered. No ribbon cutting for the collapse of the Administration for Community Living. No national reckoning when misinformation about disability spreads on federal letterhead and leads to real-world harm. Harm like the little people I know who were harassed in airports after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) became a political target following the D.C plane crash when our president attributed the disaster to our community.
What we’re seeing now is the result of years of bipartisan disinvestment. It’s just happening louder, faster, and crueler than before.
This isn’t bureaucratic drift. It’s intentional. And it’s happening while the rest of the country posts inspirational quotes about inclusion.
I run New Disabled South with the mission of improving the lives of disabled people and building strong disability justice and rights movements in the South, and I can tell you: This moment is not about pride. It’s about survival.
The Trump administration recently directly attacked a federal employment program that helped place disabled people in jobs across agencies like the FAA. Instead of telling the truth, they called it a “diversity hiring” loophole and singled out specific disabilities, including dwarfism. The backlash from right-wing radical folks was immediate and violent. And still, no one covered it.
And yet, the rollback didn’t start this year. It didn’t even start with this administration. President Ronald Reagan, with a Republican Senate from 1981-1987, launched a major campaign to reduce the size of the federal government. Significant cuts to Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) led to hundreds of thousands of people losing disability benefits after aggressive reevaluations.
And now, anti-DEI rhetoric has escalated into anti-access policy. Entire programs and research centers have been shuttered under the guise of neutrality. Leaders who run centers for racial and disability justice are currently fighting lawsuits claiming that simply existing in these spaces is discriminatory. The irony would be laughable if it weren’t so destructive.
The people affected by these attacks are the ones making our country more livable, accessible, and just. These aren’t abstract programs. These are lifelines. I know, because I grew up on them.
My parents relied on Medicaid home and community-based services (HCBS) to care for my siblings and me at home. We were triplets, all with cerebral palsy. Doctors encouraged my parents to put us into institutions. But because of HCBS and other programs, we weren’t institutionalized—we were raised in our own home, in our own community, with the people we love. I’m here because of that care. And I’m terrified that families like mine won’t get the same chance.
This is the part where I’m supposed to offer hope. But here’s the truth: We are being failed. And it’s time to name that, without softening it.
Disability justice is not a one-month-a-year conversation. It is not a post. It is not a panel. And it cannot be siloed off from broader fights for racial, gender, and economic equity. Being a part of this community, we are not a niche. We are a movement. This affects us all; more than 1 in 4 adults in the United States have some type of disability, and that’s not counting the number of people who have been and continue to be disabled from Covid-19. And we are all deeply, inextricably linked to every community being attacked right now.
When Black students lose access to equity programs, disabled students lose.
When LGBTQ+ protections are stripped away, disabled people lose.
When DEI offices are dissolved, accessibility gets erased too.
And when we talk about disability, we must also talk about race, poverty, gender, sexuality, and geography. Especially in the South, where I live and organize, policy decisions made in D.C. don’t just ripple—they rupture. The South has the nation’s highest rates of disability, and it’s been made clear with recent cuts to Medicaid and other essential programs that the federal government isn’t coming to save us. No matter who’s in charge, disability is too often treated as an afterthought at best or a political liability at worst. What we’re seeing now is the result of years of bipartisan disinvestment. It’s just happening louder, faster, and crueler than before.
We need care webs—mutual aid rooted in relationships, not rescue. These are informal, hyper-local networks where people look out for one another. Not just with money or donations, but with time, attention, and consistency. Someone to check in. Someone to help navigate a job search or bureaucratic nightmare. Someone to drive you to the doctor when paratransit doesn’t show up. Someone who knows your access needs and shows up anyway.
This isn’t about creating a perfect system. It’s about refusing to let each other fall through the cracks.
Building a care web can be as simple as texting a neighbor, posting in a local group, or organizing around one person’s immediate needs. You don’t have to be disabled to start one. You just have to decide that no one should be left behind because a government decided they didn’t matter.
These may seem like small acts, but they are how we survive. They are how we resist.
So this month, skip the slogans. Ask: Who do I know that needs care? Who will I support when the next cut comes? What am I building that lasts beyond this news cycle? Or this election cycle?
That’s the work. That’s the rage. And that’s how we move forward together.
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