Lawyers for miners with pneumoconiosis and their families sent a letter to Senators Shelley Moore Capito (RW, Virginia) and Joe Manchin (IW, Virginia) urging them to prioritize increasing monthly grants for pneumoconiosis care in the budget proposal currently before Congress.
The letter, signed by the Black Lung Association’s Fayette, Kanawha and Nicholas counties, urges senators to tie the grants – which are paid monthly to black lung sufferers who win legal battles for the benefits and their dependents, including spouses, children and grandchildren – to the cost of living rather than the federal pay scale.
“The way things are going now, we will only get a pay rise if they [federal employees] get a raise,” said Gary Hairston, president of the National Black Lung Association and the organization’s Fayette County chapter. “It’s not enough. Look at the cost of living right now. Often [with the current rate] You have to make decisions about what you get and what you have to give up because you don’t have the money.”
The amount of the scholarship is 37.5% of the basic salary for a Entry level Position of the Federal Government, According to the US Department of Labor.
Based on this rate, a single recipient of the pneumoconiosis benefits currently receives $772.60 per month. Individuals with one dependent receive $1,158.90 and the stipend increases by about $193 per month and is capped at $1,545.20 for individuals with three or more dependents.
When the benefits for pneumoconiosis were paid out for the first time in December 1969, Main recipients received $144.50 per month. Inflation-adjustedthat would be a total of $1,206.58 in August 2024.
Accordingly Research According to the Appalachian Citizens Law Center, the current stipend for a beneficiary and a dependent can be more than $3,000 below the cost of living in several communities with high populations of miners and people with pneumoconiosis.
In Kanawha County, for example, the cost of living for two adults – one of whom was employed – was $4,407 a month in 2023, according to the Subsistence level calculator at MIT. The monthly pneumoconiosis benefit this year for a beneficiary and a dependent was $1,106—a difference of $3,301.
For Hairston and others like him who rely on that income, that difference has real implications for their lives.
“When you don’t have enough money to pay for your medication, when you have a family to support, I have to look at what I have and think about how I can supplement it,” Hairston said. “When I have the money to pay for one thing, I have to go without another. I have to go without food or skip medication. We suffer and struggle.”
The effects can be even harder for newborn minerssaid Hairston, who are not yet eligible for benefits but may not be able to find other work due to the effects of pneumoconiosis.
“This young man, whose body was destroyed trying to make a living, doesn’t have much to do with money when he has children and a family,” Hairston said.
And as younger miners receiving the benefits struggle to make ends meet, increasing numbers of them are developing the debilitating pneumoconiosis. Resurgence of the disease is underway as miners are diagnosed with younger age groups than ever before, due to a lack of easily accessible coal and an increasing amount of silicosis-rich sandstone they must dig through to get to the remains.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 20 percent of coal miners in central Appalachia suffer from pneumoconiosis—the highest rate in more than 25 years. One in 20 coal miners in the region suffers from the most severe form of the disease.
‘They need it now’: With Manchin leaving office, the work of updating the pneumoconiosis benefits program could become more hard
Both Manchin and Capito Keep seats free in the U.S. Senate Budget Committee. In an email on Tuesday, a spokesperson for Capito confirmed that the senator had received the letter but “does not normally comment on issues” that are still pending before the Budget Committee.
Chelsea Barnes, director of government affairs and strategy at the environmental nonprofit Appalachian Voices, said given their positions on the committee, it’s possible senators could work together to push through some sort of update and change how benefit rates are set for the welfare program.
With the 118th Congress coming to a close and elections looming, Barnes said the best chance to pass the bill would be to include a measure to update the pneumoconiosis assistance program in either the federal government’s annual funding bill or a continuing resolution.
“There is not much time left … everyone is focused on the elections and there are not many opportunities to get legislation passed at the moment, but they [congress] need to get the bill to fund the government done,” Barnes said. “Whether through a continuing resolution this month or final passage later this year, we know [the funding bill] is the top priority right now. If we put something like this in place, there’s a chance it will actually pass.”
If the bill does not pass, advocates and recipients of the narrow grants will have to start all over again to update the program, Barnes said.
“Miners in general are fighting for attention in Congress because there are fewer and fewer of them and it’s getting harder and harder for them to get their voices heard,” Barnes said. “I think they feel the pressure that if we don’t get this done now, it’s going to be a lot of work that’s going to take at least another year or a couple of years. They need it now.”
And next time the work might be harder.
Manchin is no re-election This would mean that the activists of the black lung movement would have at least one less ally in Congress.
Its seat is probably occupied by Governor Jim Justice, a Republican whose worried The portfolio of the family business empire includes the operation of a number of coal mines. The federal government is currently to ask a court 23 of these coal companies – the Justice family lawyers Claim are destitute – for contempt of court for failing to pay fines for hundreds of breaches of health and safety regulations in the mines over the past decade.
Nationwide, according to the Ministry of LabourIn fiscal year 2023, there were 16,358 recipients of the pneumoconiosis scholarship.
West Virginia had the second-highest number of successful applications of any state, with 4,208 successful applications – more than a quarter of all approved applications. Kentucky led the nation in the number of recipients of funds from the program, with 4,723 recipients.
Despite widespread hardship and political assurances to support the state’s miners, Manchin is the only West Virginia congressman to introduce a bill to update and modify the black lung assistance program.
“Senator Manchin’s top priority has always been to ensure that people affected by pneumoconiosis receive the health care and services they deserve,” a Manchin spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement on the letter on Tuesday. “West Virginia and the entire nation owe a great debt of gratitude to our brave miners, and Senator Manchin will continue to work tirelessly to find solutions that honor their sacrifices and protect their well-being.”
Since 2015Manchin has sponsored and introduced the Black Lung Benefits Improvement Act at least five times, often alongside senators from Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
Capito never signed the bill, and Reps. Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.) and Carol Miller (R-W.Va.) did not support similar efforts in the House.
“It is truly unfortunate that no other legislator in West Virginia [on] this problem of miners not having enough money and their families not having enough money to make ends meet. It’s really unfortunate that this hasn’t been prioritized,” Barnes said. “I hope that when Manchin gets out, someone else in the delegation decides it’s essential and works on it, but that just hasn’t happened.”
Hairston finds the lack of support on this issue disappointing and frustrating.
He watches politicians utilize the coal mining industry and miners as props in campaign ads and speeches to get voted into office. But once they’re there, he says, the support – if it ever existed – is gone.
“We always hear that coal keeps the lights on, but [they] Never actually mention the miner. If it weren’t for the miner, the lights would be out… We have three Republicans who won’t sign this. They’re for the coal companies, not the miners,” Hairston said. “When you say you’re our representative, show me you’re our representative. Represent me, represent the miners, assist us when we ask – and we’ve asked.”
