How many people work “under the table”? Some are trying to avoid taxes, but some are trying to avoid losing their only source of income, Social Security Disability or another form of disability income. If they are found out to be earning for themselves, they will lose any other assistance. Social Security believes we can survive on $12,000 a year. If a person on disability earns more than $1,000 more than three months, then that person is assumed to be able to support oneself. If we try to supplement that income we are seen as completely able bodied and told that we don’t need ANY assistance and to go do it ourselves. Yet if we sit back and don’t do anything and become so unfortunate, we qualify for MORE assistance. Is that what the government wants? For us to be so dependent on assistance, and not to try to help ourselves? Who are they to decide how much we need to survive? They don’t even look at what our expenses are such as medical, savings for retirement, travel, and consideration for expenses associated with income, such as business related expenditures. The weak get rewarded and those who try get punished. I don’t agree with this system and I have never been somebody who sits back and lets things go when they are simply wrong.

If a person is unable to earn a living due to a disability, and that person is unable to afford basic living expenses including food, shelter, clothing, heating, cooling, electricity, water, medical, transportation, phone (internet is considered a luxury, however I would argue it is a necessary tool in today’s society for communication and research for a disabled person who is immobile/non-ambulatory and unable to reach local facilities such as a library), and that person is unable to save for retirement, then what alternatives are available for survival? Crime, begging or stealing appear to be the only viable options if the person doesn’t qualify for any assistance elsewhere. It makes sense to me that a person should be allowed to help himself and not be penalized by the government for doing so. A tax-break for those who are already proven to be unable to work, but who are still straining themselves in a difficult situation rather than sitting back and looking for a government handout.

The guidelines for disability are not lenient and they are reviewed. Despite what some people might say, it’s not easy to fake a disability and it is very difficult to win an award of disability even for those who are very obviously disabled. It is easy to criticize for people who are not disabled, and they like to imagine that just because a person is able to do something some of the time that they must be perfectly capable of doing the same things able-bodied people do all of the time with no repercussions physically, mentally or emotionally. Nobody wants to be disabled.

It’s hard enough having a disability in the first place. Then, facing ridicule and skepticism from ones peers and even loved ones on a regular basis is overwhelming. Nobody understands exactly what it is like to be just like you. And when it comes to a disability, insurance companies will spend an exorbitant amount of money trying to prove that a disabled person is lying so that they won’t have to pay insurance premiums. Why would anybody want to leave their job to take a pay cut ,then have to try to figure out how to survive on a diminished income and pay for the same expenses they had when they were bringing in more money? It’s not logical.

I’d like to create a non-profit organization which allows disabled persons to work for themselves and provide their own benefits and reimbursable expenses such as medical, business supplies and travel expenses. And be able to use their earnings to pay for necessary expenses and put aside a portion into a retirement savings tax-free. Otherwise, so many people might not even have a future. And we deserve the right to not only dream of a future but to be able to work to provide for it.