Advocates for coal miners with black lung urged West Virginia Sens. Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito to prioritize increases to the monthly black lung benefits stipend. (Tyler Stableford | Getty Images)
Advocates for coal miners with black lung and their families sent a letter to Sens. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., and Joe Manchin, I-W.Va., on Tuesday urging them to prioritize increases to the monthly black lung benefits stipend in the budget bill currently making its way through Congress.
The letter was signed by chapters of the Black Lung Association in Fayette, Kanawha and Nicholas counties. It asked the senators to consider tying the stipends — which are awarded monthly to black lung beneficiaries who have won litigation to receive the benefits as well as their dependents, including spouses, children and grandchildren — to the cost of living instead of to the federal pay scale.
“The way it works now, we just get a raise when they [federal employees] get a raise,” said Gary Hairston, president of both the National Black Lung Association and the Fayette County chapter of the organization. “It’s not enough. Look at the cost of living right now. A lot of times [with the current rate] you’ve got to make choices of what you are going to get and what you are going to go without because you don’t have the money.”
Rates for the stipend are set at 37.5% of the base salary for an entry-level federal government position, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
Based on that rate, a single black lung beneficiary currently receiving the stipend gets $772.60 per month. Those with one dependent receive $1,158.90 and the stipend increases by about $193 a month per dependent, capped at $1,545.20 for those with three or more dependents.
When the black lung benefits were first dispersed in December 1969, primary recipients received $144.50 per month. Adjusted for inflation, that would total $1,206.58 in August 2024 dollars.
According to research from the Appalachian Citizens Law Center, the current stipend for one beneficiary and a single dependent can be more than $3,000 below the cost of living in several communities with a high number of coal miners and those affected by black lung.
In Kanawha County, for example, the cost of living for two adults — one working — in 2023 was $4,407 a month, according to the Living Wage Calculator at MIT. The monthly black lung stipend that year for one beneficiary and a dependent was $1,106 — a $3,301 difference.
For Hairston and others like him who depend on the income, that difference has real implications for their lives.
“When you ain’t got enough money to pay for your medications, when you’ve got family to support, I’ve got to look at what I’m getting and think about how I’m going to supplement it,” Hairston said. “If I’ve got the money to pay for one thing, I’m going without another. I’m going to have to go without food or skip medications. We’re suffering and we’re struggling.”
The impacts can be even harder for young miners, Hairston said, who don’t yet qualify for social security but are potentially unable to find other work because of the consequences of black lung.
“That young man — whose body was destroyed by trying to make a living — when he’s got kids, got a family, that money doesn’t go too far,” Hairston said.
And as younger coal miners who receive the benefits are struggling to make ends meet, there are more and more of them getting sick with debilitating black lung. A resurgence of the disease is underway as miners are being diagnosed at younger ages than ever before due to a lack of easily accessible coal and an increase in the amount of silica-rich sandstone they have to dig through to reach what remains.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 20% of coal miners in Central Appalachia are suffering from black lung — the highest rate detected in more than 25 years. One in 20 of the region’s coal miners are living with the most severe form of the condition.
‘They need it now:’ As Manchin leaves office, work to update black lung benefits program could become more difficult
Both Manchin and Capito hold seats on the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations. In an email Tuesday, a spokesperson for Capito confirmed that the senator received the letter but does “not typically weigh in” on issues that are still pending in front of the Appropriations Committee.
Chelsea Barnes, the director of government affairs and strategy at the environmental justice nonprofit Appalachian Voices, said it’s possible given their positions on the committee that the senators could work together to get some type of update done to change how rates are set for the benefits program.
As the 118th Congress wraps up and with elections on the horizon, Barnes said, including a measure to update the black lung benefits program in either the annual federal government funding bill or a continuing resolution may be the best chance the legislation has to get passed.
“There’s not much time here … everyone is focusing on elections and there aren’t very many opportunities to get bills passed now whatsoever, but they [congress] have to get the government funding bill done,” Barnes said. “Whether through a continuous resolution this month or a final passage later this year, we know [the funding bill] is the number one priority right now. Attaching something like this would mean it has a chance of actually passing.”
If it doesn’t pass, advocates and those receiving the limited stipends will have to start over — yet again — on all the work they’ve done pushing for updates to the program, Barnes said.
“Coal miners in general are fighting for attention in Congress because there are fewer and fewer of them and it’s harder and harder for them to be heard,” Barnes said. “I think they feel that pressure, that if we don’t get this done now, it’s going to be a lot of work that won’t happen for at least another year or a few years. They need it now.”
And next time, the work may be more difficult.
Manchin is not seeking reelection to the Senate, leaving black lung advocates with at least one less ally in congress.
His seat is likely to be filled by Gov. Jim Justice, a Republican whose troubled family business empire’s portfolio includes the operation of a number of coal mines. The federal government is currently asking a court to hold 23 of those coal companies — which Justice family attorneys claim are destitute — in contempt for failure to pay off fines for hundreds of mine health and safety violations accrued over the last decade.
Nationwide, according to the Department of Labor, there were 16,358 recipients of the black lung benefits stipend in fiscal year 2023.
West Virginia had the second highest number of recipients in any state, with 4,208 successful claims — more than a quarter of all awarded — for the fund. Kentucky, with 4,723 recipients, led the nation in the number of people receiving money from the program.
Despite the widespread need and political claims of support for the state’s coal miners, Manchin is the only congressperson representing West Virginia who has sponsored legislation to update and amend the black lung benefits program.
“Ensuring that individuals affected by Black Lung disease receive the healthcare and benefits they rightly deserve has always been a top priority for Senator Manchin,” a spokesperson for Manchin wrote in an emailed statement regarding the letter on Tuesday. “West Virginia and the entire nation owe a profound debt of gratitude to our courageous miners and Senator Manchin will continue to work tirelessly to find solutions that honor their sacrifices and protect their well-being.”
Since 2015, Manchin — often alongside senators from Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia — has sponsored and introduced the Black Lung Benefits Improvement Act at least five separate times.
Capito has never signed on to the legislation and Reps. Alex Mooney, R-W.Va., and Carol Miller, R-W.Va., have not supported similar efforts in the House.
“It’s really unfortunate that we haven’t seen another West Virginia lawmaker take [on] this issue of miners not having enough money and their families not having enough money to make ends meet. It’s really unfortunate this isn’t something that’s been prioritized,” Barnes said. “I hope that, as Manchin steps out, that somebody else in the delegation decides it’s important and works on it, but that just hasn’t happened.”
For Hairston, the lack of support on the issue is disappointing and frustrating.
He watches as politicians use coal mining and coal miners as props in campaign ads and speeches that help them get elected to office. But once they’re there, he said, it’s like the support — if it ever really existed in the first place — ends.
“We always hear that coal keeps the lights on, but [they] never really mention the coal miner. If it wasn’t for the coal miner, the lights would be off … We have three Republicans who won’t sign onto this. They’re for the coal companies, not for the coal miners,” Hairston said. “If you say you’re our representative, then show me you’re our representative. Represent me, represent the coal miners, help us when we ask for it — and we’ve been asking.”
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