Why Does Disability Have to Equal Poverty?

Disability equals poverty – most of the time.  The system created by disability policy perpetuates this status.  Why does that have to be?

First of all, having a disability is expensive.  We know that.  Wheelchairs, guide dogs, special transportation, personal care assistants, etc. are part of what make our lives work.  These are expenses over and above what the average person needs to pay in order to survive. 

In order to get any assistance with these additional expenses, it is required that a person “go on disability”.  If it is Social Security Disability that we are talking about, there is a six-month waiting period between work and the payment of benefits – if there are no delays.  Six months of extraordinary expenses and no income are not the stepping stones to wealth. 

For assistance with some benefits, you are required to have income below what is necessary to live.  And you have to remain there.

To be sure, there are what are called work incentives.  These would allow a person with a disability to return to work and temporarily maintain some of the necessary benefits.  Sometimes, it’s even possible to buy into a system that will provide these critical services.  But, there is a hitch.  There is a ceiling, a very low ceiling, below which your income must remain.  Reach or exceed that limit and all benefits disappear, whether or not you really have the income to cover them.  Since assets must also be limited, it is extremely difficult, even for the most motivated person to make that transition.  Poverty reigns and the system makes sure that it does.  There is no way out for most.

There are those who believe that this is a conspiracy perpetrated by government employees so that they may remain employed.  I have another view. 

We have a system that was designed to support persons with disabilities when employment and the technology that supports it were not available.  If persons with disabilities lived at all, they were often in residential settings and certainly not living full lives.  As life, technology and potential improved, the system did not keep up.  There have been band aids added to try to fix one aspect or another, but the system itself is the same.

For those who have already been pulled down into the system, changing disability policy could be adding insult to injury.  But, creating a new disability policy that would take effect at a defined time and would cover all new disabilities, whether incurred through birth, illness or injury,  needs to happen.   Soon.

Annette Bourbonniere

www.accessing-ability.com

401-846-1960

Fax:  401-846-1944

Twitter:  @AccessInclude