By Lisa Rein, Meryl KornfieldThe Washington Post

The Social Security Administration has abandoned plans to block thousands of older Americans from qualifying for disability benefits after an uproar that reached senior officials in the Trump White House, according to people familiar with the decision.

The agency is also halting a plan to use modern labor market data to help judge whether disability claimants can work, a project that has cost the federal government more than $350 million so far. The new data would have replaced a long-outdated jobs database that until recently included obsolete occupations such as nut sorters and telephone quotation clerks.

The policy affecting older people would have fundamentally altered who qualifies for the two federal disability programs by eliminating or limiting a person’s age as a factor to consider. It fulfilled a long-held goal of Trump officials to tighten the federal safety net and had been on track to be announced in the Federal Register as soon as December.

But widespread opposition mounted following an article in The Washington Post in October that reported the new policy could result in a loss of future benefits for hundreds of thousands of people.

Jason Turkish – an attorney representing disabled people and co-founder of the advocacy group Alliance for America’s Promise – said SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano and other administration officials assured him in meetings over the past week that the proposal would not move forward. A former Social Security executive familiar with the disability program confirmed that Bisignano has scrapped the proposed rule.

“The commissioner took a decisive, unambiguous role in concretely ruling out that this mega-regulation would move forward,” Turkish said.

A White House spokesperson said that “the White House has not seen any such proposal. However, President Trump remains fully committed to protecting and strengthening Social Security while making it easier for millions of Americans to engage with the Social Security Administration.”

Social Security officials did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

The about-face follows months of turmoil at the agency that issues retirement and disability benefits to 72 million Americans. Thousands of staff cuts, voluntary departures and reassignments, service failures, and an aggressive takeover by Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service early in the Trump administration have led to widespread customer complaints and low morale in the agency’s workforce.

Social Security evaluates disability claims by considering age, work experience and education to determine if someone can adjust to other types of work. Applicants over 50 have a better chance of qualifying because age is treated as a limitation in adapting to many jobs.

But with prodding from Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought earlier this year, the agency began to consider eliminating age as a factor entirely or raising the threshold to 60, according to people familiar with the plans, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private discussions. Leland Dudek, the acting commissioner at the time, instructed officials to begin drafting the new rule shortly after he took office.

Advocates for the disabled and elderly applauded the decision to back off.

“Social Security disability insurance is a critical lifeline for people who find themselves no longer able to work,” Jenn Jones, vice president of financial security for AARP, said in a statement. “We appreciate Commissioner Bisignano’s commitment to a careful and transparent process, because any changes to [disability insurance] can impact older Americans across the country who rely on Social Security for their independence and livelihoods.”

A cut in disability benefits could have significant political consequences, advocates and lawmakers have warned, pointing to Trump’s campaign promise to not touch Social Security.

“I’m incredibly pleased to see Commissioner Bisignano and the administration decided not to pursue proposed cuts to Social Security’s disability programs – cuts which would have been out of step not only with what the American people want, but also with President Trump’s repeated promises not to cut Social Security,” Rebecca Vallas, CEO of the National Academy of Social Insurance, said in a statement.

Conservatives have long argued that since Americans are living longer and fewer have jobs that require manual labor, many physically disabled workers could adapt to desk work, with the result that fewer people would qualify for disability benefits. Social Security had prepared a similar rule at the end of the first Trump administration but ran out of time to formally propose it.

To determine the jobs a disability applicant might be able to do, Social Security has long relied on a database compiled by the Labor Department, which abandoned the list more than 30 years ago as the economy shifted away from blue-collar work to information and services. Martin O’Malley, who served as Social Security commissioner during the Biden administration, removed many of those jobs from consideration after scrutiny from lawmakers following a Post investigation in 2022.

But the agency did not replace them with a sophisticated database of jobs in the modern U.S. economy compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics over the course of years. Among the Trump administration’s concerns with using the new data is that younger disabled people with cognitive and mental impairments would probably qualify for fewer jobs, potentially leading more of them to be awarded benefits, the former Social Security executive said.

According to two former officials, starting next year the agency planned to develop a database using the BLS data to help determine which jobs, if any, someone seeking benefits could perform. Disability advocates say they worry that such a database would be programmed to come up with a vast array of jobs – particularly if advancing age was no longer a limiting factor – and would end up denying benefits to tens of thousands of claimants every year.

Michelle Spadafore, a New York-based disability attorney, said that advocates were most concerned about the proposal that could have made more older Americans ineligible for disability and are willing to wait until the agency moves forward with a modern jobs database.

“I don’t know if there’s a way to not throw out the baby with the bathwater,” she said. “The threat of taking age out of the equation is so great that even though we want to see modernization of job data, we’re willing to wait on that.”

Q: We have a question for you regarding our bathroom. We want to convert our bathtub to a shower stall so we do not have to lift our legs so high to get in and out. Will it be harder to sell our house in the future without a bathtub?

A: I wouldn’t worry about it. If making this change allows you to stay and enjoy your home for years to come, then do it for your needs. When you sell, you could change it back to a tub or give an allowance to the buyer if it becomes an issue.

Home maintenance tip

I would like to vent a little here — about clothes dryer venting. I go into many homes, and whether it’s as a buyer’s agent or as a seller’s agent listing a home, I always look at the appliances, including the washer and dryer. When I look at the dryers, I observe what kind of ducting it has. There is flexible (looks like a flimsy accordion style, which is usually white vinyl or foil), semi-rigid (looks like a flexible aluminum tube) and then there is rigid (looks like the sheet metal ductwork you would see on your furnace). According to the National Fire Protection Association, in 2014-2018, local fire departments responded to an average of 13,820 home structure fires per year in which dryers were involved in the ignition. These fires caused an average of seven civilian deaths, 344 civilian injuries, and $233 million in direct property damage annually. The main issue for dryer ducts is that lint goes through them while still containing some moisture, and it sticks to the walls of the ducting.

You might think that the lint trap stops all lint, but it does not. The flexible and semi-rigid ducting, because of the ribs, are more prone to catching lint than the smooth rigid metal ducts. The danger is when the interior of the ducting gets coated with lint and the dryer gives off a spark or high heat that can ignite the lint, causing a fire in the ductwork. If you have a flexible duct, it’s going to quickly melt and possibly allow the fire to spread in your home. A semi-rigid is a little more fire resistant, but it is not as good as the rigid sheet metal type. Not only is it important to have the best ductwork, but it’s also important to have the ductwork cleaned and to have the inside of the dryer cleaned, as well. According to NFPA, one-third of dryer fires were caused by a failure to clean.

Market update

September’s market update for Macomb County and Oakland County’s housing market (house and condo sales) is as follows: In Macomb County, the average sales price was up by almost 5% and in Oakland County, it was up by more than 5%. Macomb County’s on-market inventory was unchanged at 0% and Oakland County’s on-market inventory was up by more than 5%. Macomb County’s average days on market was 29 days and Oakland County’s average days on market was 25 days. Closed sales in Macomb County were up by more than 2% and closed sales in Oakland County were up by more than 4%. (All comparisons are month to month, year to year.)

By the long-standing historical definition from the National Association of Realtors, which has been in existence since 1908, a buyer’s market is when there is a seven-month supply or more of inventory on the market. A balanced market between buyers and sellers is when there is a six-month supply of inventory. A seller’s market is when there is a five-month or less supply of inventory. Inventory has continued to stay low. In September, the state of Michigan’s inventory was at 2.8 months of supply. Macomb County’s inventory was at 2.4 months of supply and Oakland County’s inventory was at 2.5 months of supply. By definition, it’s still not close to a buyer’s market.

Steve Meyers is a real estate agent/Realtor at Realty Executives Home Towne in Shelby Township. He can be contacted with questions at 586-997-5480 or emailed at Steve@MeyersRealtor.com. You can also visit his website at  AnswersToRealEstateQuestions.com.

Bożena Lamparska’s life began with an obstacle, but she has spent every chapter since pushing forward, crafting a life rich in art, intellect and resilience.

Born in January 1955, just months before the polio vaccine was widely introduced, Lamparska contracted the virus at 10 months old.

“No one ever figured out how I got it,” she says. By the age of 14, she had already undergone a dozen surgeries. But instead of letting limitations define her, Bozena found expression through music — a suggestion from her doctor to keep her hands active that would become a lifelong passion.

Lamparska went on to teach applied music at St. Lawrence University, specializing in voice, harpsichord and piano. “I wasn’t going to be a Vladimir Horowitz,” she said, “but I played and I taught.”

Her musicality flourished despite physical limitations, and she became a respected performer, frequently called on as a last-minute soloist due to her impeccable sight-reading skills.

Over the years, Lamparska wore many professional hats — musician, educator, administrative assistant, researcher, mental health counselor and IT specialist.

“I got bored easily,” she said. After moving into computer work in the 1990s, she led the IT department at a major nonprofit in Philadelphia and became a certified Microsoft engineer. She even helped safeguard data during the Y2K scare.

Lamparska’s life took her from her native Rhode Island to Baltimore, upstate New York, Philadelphia, Maryland’s Eastern Shore and finally to Michigan, where she now lives at Brookdale Southfield. While mobility has become more difficult, she now uses a motorized wheelchair due to a complex mix of post-polio complications, aging and Parkinson’s — her sense of purpose remains clear.

“I try to feel useful,” she said. “Whether it’s helping someone with computer issues or singing along with medieval and Renaissance recordings, I still find ways to stay engaged.”

Though she no longer performs as she once did, music remains central to her life. She listens to choral works, sings along with the scores, and surrounds herself with the compositions she loves most. “Music was real important to me,” she said. “And I didn’t fully realize just how important until I couldn’t play anymore.”

Her advice for others facing physical or emotional limitations is simple: “Just keep moving forward, regardless of limitations. Do the best you can.”

And that’s exactly what she’s done.