
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 23, 1993                   TAG: 9304230119
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

DISABILITY TRUST FUND ON BRINK OF BANKRUPTCY

The economic downturn helped push the government's disability trust fund to the edge of bankruptcy and it now has only enough money to pay benefits until 1995, Congress was told Thursday.

But Congress is expected to act soon to avert disaster by shifting a greater portion of the Social Security tax into the disability fund, keeping it solvent until 2020.

The General Accounting Office's Jane L. Ross told the House Ways and Means subcommittee on Social Security that the growing number of Americans on the disability rolls has drained the insurance trust fund.

Ross and Louis D. Enoff, acting Social Security commissioner, said that the recession may have pushed some disabled workers onto the rolls, while unemployment reduced the amount of taxes paid into the Social Security trust funds.

- Associated Press

by CNB