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

DATE: FRIDAY, April 15, 1994                   TAG: 9404150079
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Medium

DISABLED BENEFITS MAY BE AT RISK

Thomas D. Sutton, supervising attorney with Community Legal Services in Philadelphia, told lawmakers that under the rubric of improving the way Social Security handles a mounting number of claims for benefits, the agency is seeking to scrap a decades-old standard used to decide who is disabled.

Sutton said the result would be to deny benefits to large numbers of disabled Americans who would be eligible for aid under current law.

Matthew Diller, a professor at the Fordham University School of Law, also told the Ways and Means subcommittee on Social Security that the agency has proposed a ``major overhaul of the standards for receiving disability benefits.''

``Under the guise of administrative reform, the team proposes changes in the evaluation process that would change the outcomes of thousands of cases,'' Diller said.

Under the proposal, drafted by a team of Social Security Administration employees, a 25-year-old and a 55-year-old would be judged in the same way, Diller said. Disparities in age, education and work experience would be ``rendered irrelevant.''

``Despite the statutory requirement that SSA consider age, education and work experience in determining disability, the team gives short shrift to the importance of these factors,'' Diller said. ``The 55-year-old searching for a job would certainly be surprised to hear that the team believes he or she can be expected to adapt to new kinds of work to the same extent as individuals 30 years younger.''