Washington, D.C. – The Arc is encouraged that the U.S. Senate took an important step in favor of respecting the human dignity of people with disabilities and aging adults. Wednesday, the Senate passed a $3.5 trillion budget resolution triggering the start of the reconciliation process.

The vote paves the way for Congress to pass a comprehensive spending package that would provide generational investments in our nation’s crumbling care infrastructure and groundbreaking benefits that could reshape the future for millions of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, American families and their children.

“The historic investment in Medicaid Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) included in the budget resolution will be transformative for a system that currently leaves almost one million people waiting for services all over this country,” said Peter Berns, Chief Executive Officer of The Arc of the United States. “People with disabilities and aging adults, have struggled, well before the pandemic, with a system that does not include the resources to support them in their homes and communities. The infrastructure of care for these groups currently includes the labor of unpaid family caregivers who fill in the gaps in the service system, and a paid workforce that is not paid a family sustaining wage. The $400 billion included to both expand access to HCBS and raise wages for the direct care workforce will shore up the care infrastructure so that people with disabilities can live independently, aging adults can age in place, and family caregivers can return to the workforce.”

The Arc also strongly supports the inclusion of a national paid leave program and hope to see other priorities such as long-overdue improvements to the Supplemental Security Income program included in the final package.