Changes to Social Security disability benefits will affect 50 to 60-year-old applicants

ProPublica graphic, with data from SSA, Master Beneficiary Record, 100% data; USPS geographic data; and Census Bureau, Population Division, 2023 estimates of resident population.

Changes made to Social Security disability benefits by the Trump Administration could harm 50 to 60-year-old applicants “without a high school or college education who have, for decades, toiled in physically grueling jobs,” Eli Hager reported for ProPublica.

“The five states where the highest proportions of people rely on these benefits are West Virginia, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi and Alabama,” Hager wrote.

Currently, applicants who are at least 50 years old are given priority to redeem disability benefits due to their age. The changes made to the program would mean that age would no longer be a factor in determining eligibility for the benefits.

A senior administration official (who requested anonymity) explained that the current rules reflected the job economy of the 1970s, which mostly relied on manual labor. Now that the internet has created more sedentary jobs, 50-year-olds have more options.

Another change would “modernize the job listings that Social Security’s disability adjudicators and judges use to decide if there’s work available in the U.S. economy that a manual laborer could do despite physical impairments — like a low-skilled desk job at a computer or driving for Uber or DoorDash,” Hager wrote.

But Hager added that Michelle Aliff, who provides expert testimony for Social Security disability hearings, said in an interview that “an oil field roustabout in his 50s isn’t going to just sit down at a computer for work without additional training.”