Local leaders support boosting black lung benefits. That consensus hasn’t emerged in Congress.
For Ohio County Judge-Executive David Johnston, passing a resolution last year urging an increase in black lung disability benefits was a matter of principle.
The last major coal mine in Ohio County, a part of the Western Kentucky Coal Field region, closed years ago. But he said the former miners who have coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, known commonly as black lung disease, still rely on the federal monthly black lung disability payments.
The Republican county leader said his uncle died of black lung disease, and his father suffered from it. It’s an occupational disease caused by breathing in dust that can cripple lung capacity and lead to death, and a surge of cases have been found in Appalachia in recent decades from exposure to silica dust.
“The government should have had workplace safety in place to protect them, and they didn’t,” Johnston said. “These folks got sick.”
But those payments, first established through the Black Lung Benefits Act of 1969, have eroded over decades of inflation and only sporadic increases to the monthly rate.
One analysis from the Letcher County-based nonprofit Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center and the nonprofit Appalachian Voices found that the benefits received, as of 2023, are 30% less compared to what recipients were receiving in 1969. Recipients are currently eligible for a monthly benefit of $794, while the analysis found it would be well over $1,000 if tracked with inflation.
That’s why dozens of county and city governments — comprised of both Republican and Democratic leaders — across multiple Appalachian states have passed resolutions to urge an increase in benefits to support the approximately 25,000 recipients of black lung disability benefits.
Of all the states, Kentucky has the most active recipients with more than 4,700 as of 2025. West Virginia, Virginia and Pennsylvania also have significant shares.
Todd DePriest, mayor of the Letcher County city of Jenkins in Eastern Kentucky, views his city’s support for boosting black lung benefits through the historical legacy of what coal and coal miners did for the country — particularly during World War II.
“They mined the coal that made the steel that won the war,” DePriest said, calling the amount of money it would take to boost benefits a “drop in the bucket.”
Yet in Congress, the bipartisan consensus seen on the local level hasn’t materialized. Bills filed over the past 10 years to boost benefits and tie future benefit increases to the rate of inflation have only had Democratic or independent sponsors.
The latest bill, introduced this month and co-sponsored by Democratic U.S. Rep. Morgan McGarvey of Louisville, would seek to increase benefits all the way back to the same funding level, relative to inflation, as miners received in 1969. The bill, called the Support Our Miners Act, currently doesn’t have the backing of any member of Kentucky’s Republican congressional delegation.
Emails sent to press offices and spokespeople for Republican U.S. Sens. Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell and Republican U.S. Reps. James Comer, Thomas Massie, Brett Guthrie and Andy Barr requesting comment on raising black lung benefits were not returned with a response.
Republican U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers of Eastern Kentucky in a statement provided through a spokesperson said Democrats “talk openly about their desire to increase benefits” but “aren’t being transparent about their movement to destroy the trust fund through their targeted War on Coal, and sticking taxpayers with the bill.”
Johnston said he supports McGarvey’s bill. But he also said Republicans generally have a hard time, at least initially, supporting legislation that would increase spending.
He said Republicans usually “will come around on important things”, but issues such as boosting black lung benefits “always are initiated and started out with Democrats.”
“We’ll fire off letters and stuff to them,” Johnston said. “The Kentucky delegation, we can influence them with resolutions and things like that.”
Trying to gain traction in Congress
Before the Support Our Miners Act, Democratic members of Congress introduced the Black Lung Benefits Improvement Act more than 10 times between the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.
That bill, among other provisions, would have allowed for a modest boost in benefits and tracked the rate of benefits to the rate of inflation. Those bills have never had a Republican co-sponsor, and the bills have gained at most 13 co-sponsors total.
Rebecca Shelton, director of policy for the Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center, said Republicans’ critiques against the bills have often been centered around concerns over costs.
When the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee issued reports on the Black Lung Benefits Improvement Act in 2022, the minority Republicans argued the bill would increase the amount of benefits issued from the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund amid concerns about the fund’s solvency.
That government trust fund pays out benefits when a responsible coal operator isn’t identified in a black lung case or the identified operator doesn’t pay, and it gets revenue from a tax on mined coal. That fund has taken on hundreds of millions of dollars of benefit liabilities because of coal mine bankruptcies, a larger trend seen with the rapid decline in the state’s coal mining industry
Shelton argued the trust fund has essentially been insolvent because of debt the fund took on in the 20th century. She said arguments over the cost of raising benefits also sound hollow to her given the relatively small amount of funding it could take.
In analyzing the Black Lung Benefits Improvement Act, the Congressional Budget Office estimated in 2022 that it would cost a little over $5 million a year to provide a modest boost to benefits and track it with inflation.
“It has such a small cost impact that it really doesn’t feel like a valid reason to not support this bill from my perspective,” Shelton said. “I cannot imagine anyone in Eastern Kentucky, you know, saying that it’s a bad idea to support miners with this disability. It’s just such a prevalent and well-recognized problem.”
Rogers, the Republican congressman representing Eastern Kentucky, in his statement said he voted for an $18 million increase to the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund in the most recent fiscal year budget and has caseworkers who work with miners to receive benefits.
“We all agree that the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund needs significant reform to ensure that our coal miners get their hard-earned benefits before this painful disease robs them from seeing a dime,” Rogers said. “Our local leaders are doing their part to advocate for our shared constituents as well.”
He also accused Democrats and past Democratic administrations of trying to regulate coal mines out of business and wanting to “bail out the trust fund that they nearly decimated by fast-tracking coal operators” into bankruptcy.
Shelton, referencing the resolutions passed by local governments in support of boosting benefits, said she believes local leaders have been more willing to show support because they’re thinking less about partisan politics and more about “what is best for the people here.”
“I think there is a real sense of solidarity with miners locally, and especially those who have black lung disease.” Shelton said. “Unfortunately, we have not been able to rally the same kind of support among members of Congress.”