By Clark Kauffman in the Des Moines Register:

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) has released federal statistics showing that the U.S. government fined only three of 797 employers that violated federal labor laws by underpaying workers with disabilities over a recent five-year period.

Critics say the new statistics confirm what they have long alleged: Companies typically have nothing to lose by violating wage-and-hour laws intended to protect disabled workers.

Other recent and related stories by Kauffman:

• Cuts, changes bring mixed impact on the vulnerable
• Across U.S., Social Security will launch investigation designed to spot Atalissa-like abuses

From San Francisco Chronicle, Bay City News wire/CBS5 San Francisco:

A federal judge has ruled that the U.S. Social Security Administration’s benefit notice methods violate federal law because they do not provide equal access for approximately 3 million recipients who are blind or have limited vision.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup ordered the agency to give people the option of receiving notices in Braille or audio computer discs. Presently, notices are sent by mail with the option of a follow-up phone call.

… Alsup said the Social Security Administration refused to acknowledge that it was even covered by the anti-discrimination law until after the suit was filed in 2005, and “has been quick to find lame excuses for noncompliance.”

… “This is a huge benefit,” said attorney Silvia Yee of the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund in Berkeley, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. She said the ruling will allow many recipients “to have an independence in working with the (Social Security Administration) that they’ve never had before.”

From across the political landscape, pundits weigh in  on President Obama’s proposal to provide a one-time payment of $250 to Social Security recipients to offset the absence of a cost-of-living adjustment this year. A sampling:

Des Moines Register editorial: America can’t afford $250 Social Security bonus

USA Today editorial: Pandering to Social Security crowd sacrifices responsibility

Wall Street Journal editorial: A $250 bribe to make ObamaCare medicine go down

Los Angeles Times editorial: The government wants seniors and others to get $250 check. Why?

Column by Yael T. Abouhalkah in the Kansas City Star: Kill Obama’s $250 handout to seniors

In the Washington Post: comments by economists, pollsters and politicians

Jay Hancock’s blog in the Baltimore Sun: Don’t give handouts to Social Security recipients

From Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal, Fox News, Washington Post:

President Obama’s proposal this week of a $250 emergency payment to seniors and people with disabilities drew fire from critics, who saw it as an attempt to buy political support at a time when Social Security recipients are learning that they won’t get an increase in their benefit checks for the first time in decades.

Critics said Obama’s plan, which would cost at least $13 billion, is inappropriate and unjustifiable at a time when the U.S. faces soaring deficits. Obama did not say how the payments would be financed.

“It makes no sense, it’s political pandering,” said Brian M. Riedl, budget analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “This is how budget deficits grow — a few billion here, a few billion there.”

Jeffrey A. Miron, senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, called the payments “outrageous.”

“Sending checks to seniors is a blatant attempt to buy their support for Obamacare, which promises to cut Medicare spending substantially,” Miron wrote in a blog.

From an editorial in the Kansas City Star: “Lobbying for a special $250 payment looks a lot like pandering to the senior voting bloc.”

By Clark Kaufmann in the Des Moines Register:

A mounting backlog of unresolved disability claims at the Social Security Administration has kept millions of people waiting years to receive benefits to which they are entitled.

Over the past year, the number of people waiting to have claims processed has grown by more than 30 percent, from 556,000 to more than 736,000, and officials say it may well get worse. Applicants must wait an average of 505 days for a judicial hearing on their claims.

Advocates say the lengthy delays are contributing to foreclosures, divorce, poverty, homelessness and suicide.

See also:

‘Tsunami’ of disability claims looms, congressional adviser predicts — Des Moines Register

Michael Bernick writes in the San Francisco Chronicle that California State University’s East Bay campus in Hayward is launching a college experiment for people with autism, beginning this fall.

Bernick says it is hoped that the program will help people with autism find productive work. Presently, an estimated 70 percent of adults with autism in California are unemployed.

Imagine Raymond Babbitt of “Rain Man” in college. Might it not be a better alternative for him, and much less expensive for society, than institutionalization or the SSI/SSDI government system? Might he even bring unusual skills that can enrich university life for others?

Michael Bernick, former director of the California Employment Development Department, is the chair of the advisory board of the CSU East Bay autism center.

From the Associated Press:

Social Security officials say they expect an unprecedented wave of new disability claim applications, as aging and injured baby boomers lose their jobs in the recession. There are worries that the extraordinary increase will add to processing delays that have plagued the agency for years.

It’s expected that the agency will receive 3.3 million new claims in the next year, an estimate that’s grown by 300,000 claims in just the past few months. The number of people waiting to have a claim processed is up 30 percent since last fall, to more than 736,000.

Making matters worse, at least 10 states have furloughed the federally-funded employees who process benefit claims.

“We’re going to be moving backwards this year, the question is how much,” Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue said in an interview. “The trend line isn’t good.”