The Rural Blog

A digest of events, trends, issues, ideas and journalism from and about rural America, by the Institute for Rural Journalism, based at the University of Kentucky. Links may expire, require subscription or go behind pay walls. Please send news and knowledge you think would be useful to benjy.hamm@uky.edu.

The Rural Blog

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

Report: Social Security trust fund needs attention now if it's going to stay viable past 2034

OPINION: Veterans should not have to prove poverty to 'qualify' for disability payments

Proposed changes to Social Security disability determinations would hurt rural residents, researchers write

Research increasingly links depression and suicide to chronic disease, especially among seniors in rural U.S.

Rural caregivers face more financial challenges

Interactive map shows county-level data on Appalachian opioid ODs, correlated with socioeconomic data

Disability benefits are nearly twice as common in rural areas, and they can deepen a cultural divide

Young reporter receives Livingston Award for documenting the tribulations of Appalachia

Lawyer convicted in huge disability-fraud conspiracy has disappeared; may have fled U.S.

Rural areas could be hardest hit by budget cuts and work rules in SNAP, Social Security disability

Rural areas and small towns' measures of well-being resemble inner cities' data 20 years ago

Former Social Security judge pleads guilty to taking bribes in disability scam with coalfield lawyer

Rural Michigan's 'Disability Belt' is beginning to rival poverty in Appalachia, Deep South

Eastern Kentucky lawyer pleads guilty to defrauding the Social Security disability system

Hundreds in E. Ky. seek to keep federal disability benefits put at risk by fraud of lawyer and judge

Did leaking gas well cause fire that disabled Texan and burned his family? Probe leaves questions

Widow sues E. Kentucky disability lawyer, says fraudulent activity led to her husband's suicide

Disability benefits restored, pending new hearings, for 900 who used lawyer implicated in fraud

Rural disabled often struggle to make long-distance trips to receive medical care