Please join us for the RDRG webinar next Monday Sept 28. Philip Armour and Catria Gadwah-Meaden will present: How Veteran Affairs Disability Compensation Shapes Veterans' Participation across the Safety Net. Discussion by Audry Guo. Register here. uwmadison.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: RDRG Webinar: How Veteran Affairs Disability Compensation Shapes Veterans' Participation across the Safety Net. After registering, you will receive a confir...

Title: How Veteran Affairs Disability Compensation Shapes Veterans' Participation across the Safety Net: What Existing Surveys Can and Can't Tell Us and Broader Implications of the Rapidly Growing VA...

uwmadison.zoom.us

Your 20s are for believing everything is structural and your 30s are for learning that actually it's often just some guy or small group of guys (gender neutral)

www.marketwatch.com/story/americ...

American workplaces are hostile to workers caring for aging family members. These companies are doing things differently.

Offices are about to be full of employees who have another job taking care of a loved one. Some companies are trying to adjust.

marketwatch.com

Thrilled to share our **OPEN ACCESS** paper on how raising Seattle's minimum wage affected households receiving SNAP benefits. When the minimum wage went up, SNAP benefit levels went down -- a little. But, increases to earnings more than offset SNAP losses. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Minimum wage increases and SNAP participation: evidence from Seattle’s minimum wage ordinance - Review of Economics of the Household

A large and contested body of research examines how minimum wage laws affect employment and earnings for different groups of workers and industries. Far less studied are the important but ambiguous ex...

link.springer.com

I’m excited to share that @ksavin.bsky.social, @calliefreitag.bsky.social, and I have a new piece out summarizing our research on how the Trump admin’s attack on the public sector have made it harder to get and maintain disability benefits—which were already quite difficult to navigate.

Getting disability benefits got harder after the Social Security Administration’s staff was slashed and program rules were changed by Trump

Researchers learned from dozens of interviews that the usual ways of resolving complex cases, escalating issues and holding the authorities accountable no longer work.

theconversation.com

I seem to have a bunch of new followers—hello, all! I hope that you’ll check out a report that @ksavin.bsky.social, @calliefreitag.bsky.social, and I wrote about how it’s gotten even harder to claim disability benefits under Trump 2.0 and DOGE. The thread below sums up key points. Thx for reading!

Bat 🦇 Borus@matthewborus.bsky.social · 8mo ago

In this new report, @ksavin.bsky.social, and @calliefreitag.bsky.social and I explain how Trump 2.0 and DOGE built up new barriers to the already-difficult process of getting disability benefits. Let's talk about what we found, and what we recommend to address the issues. 🧵

None of it is true, but as I wrote last winter, fraud is a powerful political trope. Since then, Trump's used fraudulent fraud tropes to restrict voting rights, to gut Medicaid, and to unleash masked men on American cities to kidnap people off the street and hold them in detention camps.

Musk’s Fraudulent Fraud Squad

A tired trope gets a new lease of life

donmoynihan.substack.com

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 7mo ago

Stephen Miller: "If all of this theft were stopped, it would be enough to balance the budget. The extraction of wealth from American taxpayers to people who don't belong here is the primary cause of the national debt."

In this new report, @ksavin.bsky.social, and @calliefreitag.bsky.social and I explain how Trump 2.0 and DOGE built up new barriers to the already-difficult process of getting disability benefits. Let's talk about what we found, and what we recommend to address the issues. 🧵

“In the last year, it’s gotten a lot worse” A Qualitative Investigation of Barriers to Disability Benefits in 2025 - DREDF

This report is based on interviews with 52 benefits professionals serving over 8,000 disability claimants nationwide. The independent research finds that recent Social Security Administration administ...

dredf.org

States have started proposing steep reductions in disability services to cope with Medicaid cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Idaho is the first to suggest scrapping home care altogether — An action with a high human cost. My latest @19thnews.org.

Idaho considers an 'apocalyptic' choice for disabled people and families

Difficult budget decisions in a number of states are threatening vital programs for disabled people at home and caregivers in the workforce.

19thnews.org

Must-read new report! It's excellent work, providing crucial insight into how service to Social Security applicants and beneficiaries deteriorated over the past year. It's especially important now that SSA leadership has removed most customer-facing metrics from public view.

Bat 🦇 Borus@matthewborus.bsky.social · 8mo ago

I'm thrilled to announce a new report I wrote with @ksavin.bsky.social and @calliefreitag.bsky.social on the impact of DOGE/Trump 2.0 turmoil on Social Security disability programs. As the title says, these programs have always been tough to navigate. But in the last year, they've gotten worse.

I'm thrilled to announce a new report I wrote with @ksavin.bsky.social and @calliefreitag.bsky.social on the impact of DOGE/Trump 2.0 turmoil on Social Security disability programs. As the title says, these programs have always been tough to navigate. But in the last year, they've gotten worse.

“In the last year, it’s gotten a lot worse” A Qualitative Investigation of Barriers to Disability Benefits in 2025 - DREDF

The Mobility Device User Survey (MDUS) reported here was stimulated by reports from mobility device users of the many problems, limitations, and long waits associated with the process of acquiring a m...

dredf.org

Hot off the presses: new research with colleagues Katie Savin and @matthewborus.bsky.social about how DOGE and Trump 2.0's changes at SSA affected disability claimants. The upshot: it's always been hard to access disability benefits, but now it's gotten worse. dredf.org/ssa-barriers...

“In the last year, it’s gotten a lot worse” A Qualitative Investigation of Barriers to Disability Benefits in 2025 - DREDF

The Mobility Device User Survey (MDUS) reported here was stimulated by reports from mobility device users of the many problems, limitations, and long waits associated with the process of acquiring a m...

dredf.org

Social workers (and friends) attending @appam.bsky.social in Seattle: we will meet for our annual happy hour on Friday night from 5-7 at Kells' Bar. Be in touch if you need details and share with your students/new colleagues. Looking forward! @arpilarz.bsky.social @calliefreitag.bsky.social

This is what happens when people who hate the government run the government. There is a tremendous incentive for them to do a bad job and hurt people so that people believe the public sector is incapable of providing a basic standard of living for everyone.

My job market paper is PUBLISHED! I'm so happy I could cry. I'll theoretically do a more detailed thread with findings later, but for now, here you go! www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10....

This is so important. The focus on job numbers ignores the fact that the BLS computes inflation (the CPI) which is directly linked to many government and non-government benefits. Any attempt at politicizing inflation numbers is very, very, very bad…

Tim Bresnahan@timobres.bsky.social · last yr.

Looming problems from BLS statistics politicization. Social security benefits and many long term labor market contracts are indexed to the CPI. BLS makes the CPI. Recipients care about indexed cost of living increases, a lot. /1

A core problem in American health is inequality. The richest 1% live 12 more years than the poorest 1%. Racial disparities cause Black Americans to die 4 years sooner than White Americans. Now remember: Trump's policies which will *worsen* inequality. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/how-trumps...

If you had a sense that kicking people off of Medicaid would be bad for their health, that is only scratching the surface of how bad Trump's policies will be for public health in America. @jbarofsky.bsky.social‬ & @pamherd.bsky.social do a deep dive. 🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com/p/how-trumps...

How Trump’s Big Bad Bill Will Kill Americans

What research tells us about how Trump policies are bad for your health

donmoynihan.substack.com

I learned today that researchers estimated that these rules, when implemented, would save 13,000 lives a year. But under Trump's bill, they're blocked until 2034. So that's 13,000 unnecessary deaths each year as a direct policy choice. Plus all the daily indignities that understaffing inflicts.

David Dayen@ddayen.bsky.social · last yr.

Let me run down some other things in the bill: • 9-year delay of the Biden safe staffing rule that ensured a minimum amount of nurses per nursing home resident. So they're paying for tax cuts by cutting down on who watches your grandma.

Gift link: wapo.st/3IcNOLa

Charlotte “Pure True Love”@charluv.bsky.social · last yr.

#Baltimore Mayor #BrandonScott invested in 42 summer youth camps, 29 literacy programs, extended the rec center hours to 11 p.m, planned block parties, opened the pools for safe fun, & opened several schools up for summer classes. Crime is down 62%. 🔥🔥 www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/202...

Final vote. 50-50. VP breaks the tie. One single GOP Senator could have stopped this abomination. Saved millions of parents from watching their child go hungry. Saved the lives destroyed when Medicaid disappears. They will all live forever with the horror of this bill.

I spent the first 8 years of my career trying to convince elected officials to care about children. I wish I could tell you it was an easy sell. It wasn't. It's hard to imagine US public policy being even LESS pro-kids than it already is, but OBBB truly will make things worse. shorturl.at/77c0m

What children in poverty could lose from the 'Big Beautiful Bill'

Republicans want to change or reduce key social safety net programs that provide health care, food benefits and financial assistance for millions of children.

shorturl.at

Trump promised not to touch Medicare—but that’s exactly what this “big beautiful bill” will do, to the tune of $535 billion in cuts. CAP’s Don Berwick explains the harm:

You Thought Medicare Was Safe? Think Again.

Sequestration threatens more than $530 billion in cuts to the program over nine years. The results will be catastrophic.

contrarian.substack.com

New from me at @motherjones.com: the Senate just voted to take $930 billion from Medicaid, which could greatly impact optional Medicaid expansion and also lead to cuts of "optional" Medicaid benefits...which keep people functional. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Senate votes to cut $930 billion from Medicaid

"This bill is about caviar over kids and hedge funds over health care."

motherjones.com

We used monthly survey data to take a closer look at the potential implications of #Medicaid work requirements for adults without dependent children. Adults ages 50-64 are at greater risk of losing Medicaid coverage for not meeting the new requirements. www.kff.org/medicaid/iss...

They’re USAIDing NSF

Dan Garisto@dangaristo.bsky.social · last yr.

NEW: NSF will be kicked out of their building. Announcement will be made tomorrow by HUD Sec. and Governor of VA. HUD will take over the NSF building over the next two years. NSF staffer: "There is no planning for NSF, no identified future location, appropriation for a new building or a move."

Can you believe the NYT best movies thing does not have Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar as an option 🤯

I said what I said: "The Trump Admin has undertaken a radical restructuring [of Social Security &] claim it won’t cause damage [to] customer service. If they really believe they can serve a growing customer base w/fewer staff, they should put up or shut up." www.marketwatch.com/story/how-lo...

How long is the wait for Social Security customer service? No one knows.

The Social Security Administration has stopped publishing key customer-service metrics, which will make it more difficult to track whether performance is improving or eroding over time.

marketwatch.com