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.”