In an obituary, the Los Angeles Times, describes Paul K. Longmore as a major founder of the field of disability studies, and says he helped establish it as a field of academic research and teaching. Longmore died August 9 at the age of 64.

“He devoted his life to making this a better and more just world,” Robert A. Corrigan, [San Francisco State's] president, said in a statement. “Legendary, inspirational, pioneering, irreverent … many words are needed to sum up this remarkable man.”

… Last month, Longmore spoke at a San Francisco celebration of the 20th anniversary of the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act and reminded the crowd of a perspective he had long espoused: Disability rights activists had brought about change by redefining what it means to be disabled.

The movement recast “disability” as “a problem located mainly out there in society” that had to be dealt with, Longmore had said, whether it meant improving access by placing wheelchair-accessible ramps on curbs or elevators in buildings.

Read the full obituary here.

Earlier post here.

Diane Suchetka, blogging in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, says Ohioans face longer waits for Social Security disability claim hearings than do residents of any other state.

A report this week by Allsup, a for-profit company that helps people file for disability benefits, found Ohioans must wait more than 19 months — without benefits — before they can get a hearing on their disability claims. Delaware’s backlog ranked as the shortest in the nation, at less than ten months. The national average is 14 1/2 months, down from a high of 17 months recorded in September 2008.

“We want people to know about the inequities,” Dan Allsup, communications director for the Illinois company, said in a telephone interview Monday afternoon. “If I have a disability, it should not depend on where I live to determine how long it’s going to take me to get my benefits.”

Suchetka said the wait for a hearing follows other time-consuming procedural steps, with the effect that some Ohioans don’t receive benefits until three years or more after filing their initial applications.

Many lose their cars, their homes and their hope while they wait.

“Some clients die waiting for their hearings,” said Mary McKee, a Lorain County lawyer who handles disability cases.

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