Opinion by
Julia Yizvary (Petitioner) appeals here from a Pinal Administrative Action Order of the Office of Hearings and Appeals (Office) of the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare (D.P.W.) which affirmed a hearing examiner’s affirmance of a decision by the Philadelphia County Board of Assistance (Board) to discontinue her State Blind Pension (S.B.P.). We will reverse.
Before .this Court, Petitioner alleges that the Office erred as a matter of law by concluding that the provisions of Section 506(6) of the Code and Section
Section 506 of the Code, 62 P.S. §506 provides in pertinent part that:
The Department shall provide -a State blind pension to any blind person who:
(2) Has actual annual income of his own of less than four thousand two hundred sixty dollars ($4,260.00)
(6) ... determination of the amount of cm applicant’s income shall exclude any increase in (i) social security payments to him provided under Federal law and talcing effect subsequent to January 1,1971 .... (Emphasis added.)
Section 451.4(a) (2) of the PAEM in turn provides in pertinent part as follows:
(i) The amount of monthly OASDI [social security benefits] for purposes of S.B.P. eligibility will be determined as follows:
(A) Determine the monthly amount of OASDI as the monthly benefit received on 1/1/71 or the monthly benefit awarded after 1/1/71, then
(B) Disregard the first $4.00 from the monthly benefit, and
(C) Disregard any future increases
It is clear from the unambiguous statutory language noted above that for the purposes of determining income eligibility for a S.B.P., the D.P.W. must only look to the monthly amount of social security benefits a claimant initially received on or after January 1,1971, and that any future increase in benefits is
Accordingly, we will enter the following
Order
Now, July 12, 1982, the Final Administrative Action Order of the Office of Hearings and Appeals of the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare, dated April 14, 1981, is reversed, and the Department of Public Welfare is hereby directed to (1) reinstate the State Blind Pension of the Petitioner, Julia Yizvary, and (2) to- pay her past benefits accruing from the date of the suspension of her State Blind Pension.
