Blind Americans Return to Work Act

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Hi, everybody, and welcome back to a very special edition of NFB Newsline. Tennessee presents a today. My guest is Jesse Schirach. Jesse is a member of the government.

Affairs team for the National Federation of.

The Blind, and he is here today.

To talk with us about a bill.

That has been introduced into our US House of Representatives. It's blind Americans Return to work act. And the bill number for that is HR 8878.

Hi, Jesse, and thank you for joining me today.

Hi, Yvonne. It's fantastic to be here with you. Thank you for the invitation.

Really excited to be on your show.

Jesse has been hard at work on gaining sponsorship for this bill, and the bill was introduced by Congressman Pete Sessions of Texas. So, Jesse, talk about what the bill.

Is and what our hope is that we can get accomplished and what the bill will do.

Sure.

Thank you.

So the bill, Blind Americans return to.

Work Act 8878, is a piece of legislation that solves a problem in Social Security disability insurance.

People who receive Social Security disability insurance.

Have an earnings limit, meaning that in order to keep Social Security disability, theyre able to only work so many hours per month or earn so much money per month. We call this the substantial gainful activity threshold. So for blindness, that number is $2,590 a month. So if a person earns over that amount, they don't qualify for Social Security disability anymore, and they can lose their benefits. If they earn under that amount, they're allowed to work and still receive their SSDI benefits check. So the issue is that we're finding that more and more people are holding back on the amount of time they want to work. They want to work and make less money in order to stay under this artificial limit. And blind people can work in any.

Number of fields and careers.

And we want to make sure that blind people are working to their full potential. So what we want to see is an incentive for blind people to work.

So what we've done with this legislation.

Is we're creating what they call a.

A ten year demonstration project.

That means that a person who is.

Receiving Social Security disability would have ten.

Years where they could try to phase off of Social Security disability in a way that's a little bit more comfortable. Essentially, we're doing something that's similar to the SSI program in that with SSI, for every $2 a person earns, they.

Have to give back $1 of their benefits. So with Social Security disability, with this.

Blind Americans return to Work act, this.

Two for one phase out would kick.

In when a person hits that earnings limit. So as soon as they would start.

Earning more than $2,590 a month, for.

Every $2 they earn, they'd give up a dollar of their benefits. It just helps the program to be more in line with SSI and what SSI operates currently. So we think this is a really great solution, and we want to see this enacted. Now, the other piece of it is that there's another rule within SSI called blind work expenses. And there's different types of expenses with.

It'S more general with Social Security disability.

They have impairment related work expenses. Well, we want to see the programs.

A little bit more similar.

So the other thing that we're going to do is bring in the blind working expenses into SSDI. So we're really, really excited about this.

There seems to be a lot of.

Enthusiasm about this bill, and we're just trying to get people motivated. And what we're thinking is that many people can reach out to your member of Congress.

We all have a member of Congress.

And we're encouraging you to reach out to your member of Congress and to.

Call them and to ask them to support the Blind Americans Return to work.

Act by co sponsoring HR 8878.

What's the benefit of gaining co sponsors?

That's a really good question. The benefit of gaining co sponsors is this. Ideally, when a bill passes, you want to make sure that you have enough votes in Congress for it to pass. Right? So in Congress, there's 435 members, so you need at least half of that in order for a bill to pass. Well, the way around that is that you get a bill sponsored by an.

Individual, it gets introduced by a congressman.

And a lot of times you have.

What'S called a lead cosponsor. And sometimes that might be a person on the other side of the political.

Party, on the other side of the aisle who is going to lead it. So we have Congressman Pete sessions, who happens to be a Republican, as our sponsor, and we have quasi mfume from Maryland, who's a Democrat, and he's our lead cosponsor. So right now we have those two individuals, and third co sponsor.

I'm drawing a blank on the congressman's.

Name from North Carolina. But essentially the reason we want to.

Call out and we want to try.

To ask congressional offices to co sponsor is it's essentially showing support for the bill.

So the more co sponsors that we can gain shows that there are more members of Congress who are really interested.

In this piece of legislation and who.

Are coming forward as being supporting members of Congress.

They're saying that if the bill comes up for a vote and if the bill doesn't go through any amendments or.

Changes, that they'll, they'll support it and.

They'Ll vote I in favor of it. So it's really important, it's crucial to get members of Congress to co sponsor.

A piece of legislation that you're in.

Favor of because it's more likely to pass the more support and co sponsors that it has.

One of the things that I like to tell people when you email your congressperson or even if you call them, then tell them your story, tell them why this is important to you. Give an example, Jesse, if you would, of someone's story.

Sure, I'm happy to do that. And I think that's a really important point when you think about telling your story. I want, I want you to concentrate.

On one thing first.

I want you to concentrate on the problem. So what is the problem that a.

Person is experiencing in your story?

And then a lot of times we think of like the explosion, the thing that causes change, and then you have.

The solution to the story.

So I'm going to use my example because I received SSDI for a number.

Of years, from.

2014 to 20, 1420.

During that time, I was living in.

North Dakota and I was working as a contractor. So I was working for the state of North Dakota as, as a technology trainer. And so I was also doing accessible.

Web design so I could control my.

Own schedule, I could control how much work I took on. And so if I would get a really big contract, say I was providing.

X number of hours of technology training.

Per week, I was always sure to.

Keep my earnings under SGA because I didnt want my benefits to be impacted.

And so as a result, if I.

Had too much work, I would start.

To turn down work. And as I was turning down work, people would go elsewhere if they needed training because I obviously wasn't available.

I was turning down work so they.

Would go to different providers. And what I found was that it was hurting my business because I wasn't able to give as much training as people needed and I wasn't getting new referrals because I was doing as much as I was able to do and stay under the earnings limit. So I was able to jump over.

The cliff, the earnings cliff as we say it.

But in order to do so, I.

Had to move from North Dakota. All the way across the country to.

Albuquerque, New Mexico, to take a job.

Where I was going to be earning.

Over the SGA limit. And I was very fortunate that way. But most of our world is not that fortunate. Less than 2% of the blind population.

Receiving SSDI is able to, to come.

Off of SSDI because that earnings cliff holds them back. So whenever you formulate your story, try.

To think about a time period.

Think about, you know, whether it took place in 2014, wherever you're living, try to really make, make it real for.

The person you're talking to.

Try to make it short, clear, concise, but try to, try to really emphasize the problem that you experienced, because that's.

That makes it real.

When people understand the problem as you've experienced it, it helps them to live the problem in your shoes. And when they understand it, it makes them more compassionate. And once you know, it's less abstract, they want to solve the problem.

And it's a scary thought that as things are now for maybe gaining 15 more dollars than you normally would have in the year, you could lose up to like a third of your income.

If you lose your SSDI.

And that's a daunting thought there. So that, you know, I think stresses the importance of this bill and the importance of all of us contacting our members of Congress. And we need to stop and think, you know, even though they may be a different party from us or you may think, oh, this party's not going to do that. You can't think like that. You have to contact them and give them the chance to become a co sponsor, because too often people say, oh, well, they're of that party. That's not going to work. I'm just wasting my time.

But you're not.

And we are taking part by contacting our congress in the most powerful means of democracy. We're having our say. If you have that right to communicate with your congressperson, it's so very important to take advantage of that. Jesse, thank you for joining me and.

Talking about this bill.

And again, repeat the bill name and the number.

Sure.

The bill name is the Blind Americans.

Return to Work act, and it's HR 8878. And remember to reach out to your congressman or congresswoman and ask them to co sponsor it. All it takes is one phone call, and your phone call could make all of the difference in persuading your member of Congress to supporting this piece of legislation. So thank you, Yvonne, for the opportunity to talk about the, this important piece of legislation.

Well, thank you for joining me and.

Talking about this, and if anyone has.

Questions, our government affairs team makes themselves available.

You can contact me as our legislative coordinator for Tennessee. Send an email to yneubert at n f b t n.org. and thank you for joining me for today's special edition of NFB Newsline Tennessee presents NFB Newsline.

Tennessee is a proud sponsor of this podcast. To learn more about NFB News Newsline, go to nfbnewsline.org or call 629-236-2428 or you can drop us a line at nfbnewsline tnfbtn.org.