The Arc submitted comments for the record to the Senate Finance Committee following their hearing on the state of child care. The Arc emphasized the importance of federal funding to support the child care system as well as reforms needed to ensure greater access and inclusion for children with disabilities.
Filed: July 18, 2024
Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
Overview: Amicus brief alongside other disability rights organizations arguing that Supreme Court precedent requires courts to refer to clinical standards when determining intellectual disability in death penalty cases.
Excerpt: “In Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), the United States Supreme Court held that executing defendants with intellectual disability violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Subsequently, in Hall v. Florida, 134 S. Ct. 1986 (2014), in accord with the clinical consensus, the United States Supreme Court rejected an arbitrary cutoff for intelligence quotient (“IQ”) scores in making the intellectual disability determination and emphasized the importance of courts’ adherence to the appropriate clinical standards in their analysis. In Moore v. Texas, 137 S. Ct. 1039 (2017) (hereinafter “Moore I”), the Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments requires that adjudications of intellectual disability in death penalty cases be “informed by the views of medical experts” and that the non-clinical factors adopted in Ex parte Briseño, 135 S.W.3d 1 (Tex. Crim. App. 2004) may no longer be used because they create an unacceptable risk that persons with intellectual disability will be executed. Following the Supreme Court’s lead, this Court has held that Texas courts ‘must be informed by the current medical diagnostic framework for assessing intellectual disability’ when determining whether a person has intellectual disability. Petetan v. State, 622 S.W.3d 321, 357 (Tex. Crim. App. 2021); Moore I, 137 S. Ct. at 1044. Courts must insist on the use of the clinical framework in evaluating Atkins claims. Otherwise, they risk violating the Eighth Amendment and unconstitutionally sentencing individuals to death.”
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Filed: July 11, 2024
Court: U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Overview: Amicus brief arguing that California regional centers and their vendors, which coordinate and deliver services to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, are places of public accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Excerpt: “Because they have physical buildings at which and from which they provide services to the public, California Regional Centers and their vendors (including Defendants/Appellees) are all places of public accommodation under Title III of the ADA. . .and the services they provide individuals like Plaintiffs/Appellants are covered by that statute. . .This Circuit’s requirement that discrimination challenged under Title III have a ‘nexus’ to a physical building simply requires a connection to that building; it does not require that the discrimination have occurred on the physical premises. The district court’s opinion requiring a showing that the challenged services were provided at Defendants’ offices. . . improperly restricted the reach of Title III, contrary to the plain language of the statute, its legislative history, and this Circuit’s precedent. The district court also improperly required that plaintiffs establish a violation of the ADA as a prerequisite to a claim under either Section 504 or the Unruh Act. These holdings are completely unsupported, as the three statutes – while all addressing disability discrimination – do so in different contexts with, as a result, different required factual predicates. Ultimately, by eliminating all recourse for individuals with IDD to challenge discrimination by Regional Centers and their vendors, the district court’s decision threatens to undermine years of progress through both the ADA and California’s Lanterman Act.”
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The Arc of the United States submitted a letter of support for H.R. 2941, Recognizing the Role of Direct Support Professionals Act. The legislation would urge the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to consider including a code for direct support professionals (DSPs) in its revision of the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) manual. The omission of a DSP SOC code leads to a lack of data on the DSP workforce, the devaluation of the profession, and likely lower reimbursement rates as a result.
Senator Ron Wyden
Chairman
Senate Committee on Finance
221 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Senator Mike Crapo
Ranking Member
Senate Committee on Finance
239 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
RE: June 18, 2024 Hearing on “Work and Social Security Disability Benefits: Addressing Challenges and Creating Opportunities”
Dear Chairman Wyden and Ranking Member Crapo,
Thank you for holding this hearing on the important topic of barriers to workforce participation for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) beneficiaries.
The Arc is the largest national community-based organization advocating for people with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (IDD) and their families. Our nearly 600 state and local chapters across the United States provide a wide range of services for people with IDD, including individual and systems advocacy, public education, family support, systems navigation, support coordination services, employment, housing, support groups, and recreation. Nearly half of all SSI child beneficiaries and around one in three adults on SSI have an intellectual or developmental disability. As a result, protecting and improving SSI and other Social Security disability benefits has been a longstanding focus of The Arc’s advocacy work.
We often hear from our networks about how outdated rules and administrative burdens for both beneficiaries and employers can limit opportunities for people with disabilities to work. For example, the parent of a disabled person in Texas shared how navigating these requirements pose challenges for employers:
“My adult son received Social Security benefits as a young adult. He has autism. He graduated high school and then community college, but needed these benefits while he tried to get a full-time job.
Social Security’s outdated rules made it almost impossible for him to do that. He worked part-time for a small, veteran-owned company for a while, but they let him go after Social Security sent the first batch of paperwork. They felt so badly, but it was just too much of a burden for them.”
Multifaceted approaches are needed to modernize Social Security disability programs to increase opportunities for work, to provide support to help people with disabilities remain attached to the labor force, and to deliver the training, services, and supports that people with disabilities may need to return to work. Our comments will focus on three key issues highlighted in the hearing, including: (1.) restrictions on work-related income faced by Disabled Adult Child (DAC) beneficiaries; (2.) the SSI program’s grievously outdated asset limits, income limits, and earned-income disregards; and (3.) the impact of overpayments on both SSI and SSDI beneficiaries.
We are grateful for the substantial bipartisan attention and action that members of the Senate Finance Committee have undertaken this Congress to address each of these issues. We also commend the steps that the Social Security Administration (SSA) has taken this year to reduce the burden of overpayments on beneficiaries. Advancing the SSA’s important work in this and other critical activities geared towards improving services for millions of Social Security beneficiaries will require sustained and increased administrative funding in the FY2025 budget.
The Arc expressed its strong support for the Autism CARES Act, which is critical legislation for research and training programs. The proposed bill reauthorizes the programs for another five years. The Arc encouraged the bill to pass quickly to ensure the current bill does not expire.
May 23, 2024
The Honorable Glenn “GT” Thompson
Chairman
House Committee on Agriculture
400 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
The Honorable David Scott
Ranking Member
House Committee on Agriculture
468 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Chairman Thompson and Ranking Member Scott,
We write to express strong concern with the proposed changes to future Thrifty Food Plan (TFP) benefit adjustments outlined in the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2024: Discussion Draft (House Farm Bill). This proposal would block Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits from keeping pace with the cost of a healthy, realistic diet, which the Congressional Budget Office projects would cut benefits by almost $30 billion over the next 10 years. If enacted, this would be the largest cut to SNAP in almost 30 years, and these cuts would grow much deeper over time. Every SNAP participant would receive less to buy groceries in the future than they would under current law. This represents a serious threat to the health of nearly 14 million people with disabilities who rely on SNAP to put food on the table.
The Arc is the largest national community-based organization advocating for people with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (IDD) and their families. Our nearly 600 state and local chapters across the United States provide a wide range of services for people with IDD, including individual and systems advocacy, public education, family support, systems navigation, support coordination services, employment, housing, support groups, and recreation.
In the United States, all too often food insecurity and disability go together. Families that include people with disabilities are two to three times more likely to experience food insecurity than families that have no members with disabilities. Similarly, people experiencing food insecurity have increased likelihood of chronic illness and disability.
By increasing access to adequate, nutritious food, SNAP plays a key role in reducing hunger and helping people with disabilities to maximize their health and participate in their communities. SNAP benefits have served as an important lifeline as the price of food has skyrocketed in recent years, but benefit levels have fallen short of meeting many peoples’ needs. From 2019 to 2023, the all-food Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose by 25 percent. As a member of our network from Minnesota wrote, “As a disabled person who is unable to work and gets the maximum amount of benefits I’m entitled to through the program, I still struggle to feed myself and rely on the food shelf and other charities to make sure I don’t go hungry. Cutting it would be devastating to my ability to feed myself.”
Inflation is not the only factor that influences the cost of a healthy diet. Beyond inflation, people with disabilities face additional food affordability challenges because many have allergies, food sensitivities, or other health conditions that require a specialized diet and higher grocery bills. For example, we recently received a message from a parent in Texas who emphasized the importance of SNAP benefits for her family when she wrote, “My daughter has a life-threatening syndrome related to a slow metabolism requiring her to have a low-[calorie], low fat, overall very healthy diet. These foods often cost more. … We daily are working towards long term solutions to keep her safe and healthy when we are someday gone. Losing SNAP benefits would set us back completely.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s 2021 update to the TFP resulted in modest but overdue improvements to SNAP benefits that have enabled people with disabilities to afford more of the foods they need. For example, the inclusion of some easier-to-prepare foods such as canned beans and pre-cut foods in the 2021 TFP helped make SNAP benefit levels better reflect the reality of what beneficiaries—especially those with mobility and/or manual dexterity challenges—actually buy.
The proposal in the House Farm Bill to freeze the cost of the TFP outside of inflation adjustments, even if nutrition guidelines or other factors change the cost of an adequate diet, would erode benefits over time and have a disproportionate impact on people with disabilities. We urge you not to advance this proposal and to work on a bipartisan basis to strengthen and protect SNAP.
Sincerely,
Darcy Milburn
Director, Social Security and Healthcare Policy
The Arc of the United States
The Arc submitted comments to a proposed rule by the FDA to ban electrical stimulation devices for aggressive or self-injurious behavior. These devices are used by only one institution in Massachusetts, and The Arc has been fighting for decades to protect its residents from this abuse.
The Arc expressed its support for several bills being reviewed by the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health at a hearing on expanding access to Medicaid. The legislation reviewed included making Money Follows the Person permanent, portability of Medicaid benefits for dependents of military families, and modifications to the Medicaid buy-in program for older working adults.
The Long-Term Care Workforce Support Act would provide major investments and protections for workers across the long-term care settings. The Arc applauded Senator Casey (D-PA) for developing legislation to address this pressing issue.
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