Public Benefits

The nation's elderly and disabled Social Security recipients will receive a 1.7 percent increase in payments in 2013. The increase is less than half of last year's 3.6 percent cost-of-living adjustment (COLA).

Beneficiaries of a special needs trust can still qualify for federal housing assistance programs like Section 8, but careful planning is required to avoid having benefits reduced or eliminated.

The Senate has passed a bill that would postpone the Bush administration's effort to restrict case management services provided to Medicaid beneficiaries, including individuals with physical or mental disabilities and children in foster care.

When care needs are significant or family members cannot be available, parents may wish to include instructions in a special needs trust for the trustee to retain a professional care manager.

It is possible to qualify for benefits from the Social Security Administration, like Supplemental Security Income (SSI), without a birth certificate.

A special education school in Massachusetts is being allowed to continue its practice of administering electric shocks to students after a prank caller ordered two students to be given shocks.

New rules issued by the Bush administration would drastically reduce the help those with special needs receive when leaving an institution.

An Arkansas appeals court has ruled that a father may end child support payments to his adult son with special needs after the son's move to a group home where his Supplemental Security Income (SSI) now covers his monthly expenses.

Hundreds of thousands of Social Security disability (SSD) claimants are waiting up to three years for a resolution of their disability appeals, and during the wait more and more claimants are losing their homes, filing for bankruptcy, or dying from...