[NYAPRS Enews] CT: Study Underscores Connection Between Disability and Poverty

[Harvey Rosenthal]

Poverty And Disability Greatly Correlated, New Study Shows

Chicago Tribune  November 4, 2009

 

Hard economic times are even harder when you have a disability. But
poverty and disability don't have to be synonymous if we design our
policies well.

 

A new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (a
Washington-based think tank) titled "Half in Ten" states that almost 50
percent of working-age adults who experience poverty for at least a
12-month period have one or more disabilities.

 

People with disabilities, the report says, account for a larger share of
those experiencing poverty than people in all other minority, ethnic and
racial groups combined and are even a larger group than single parents.

 

The extra costs associated with living with a disability such as
purchasing expensive equipment like wheelchairs and catheters or
obtaining specialized medical attention keep many disabled people and
their families in poverty, the report notes.

 

The report also astutely observes that direct care workers who assist
people with disabilities in their homes and communities are often
themselves in poverty. The median income for the 3 million direct care
workers in the United States is only $17,000 a year, the report says.

 

Fortunately, there are several steps we can take to ensure that
disability doesn't spell poverty.

 

The first step is universal health care. The report stresses "the
fundamental importance of health care reform, especially the provision
of universal coverage, to anti-poverty efforts." The lack of good health
insurance, the report says, "is one of the most significant drivers of
income poverty and severe disadvantage." Another important step is for
the United States to adopt "the kinds of paid-sick-day and
paid-sick-leave policies that are already in place in all other
similarly wealthy nations."

 

At least 40 percent of private sector workers in the United States have
no paid sick days or leave, the report says.

 

Third, we should ease the ridiculously harsh restrictions on assets and
earnings imposed on those receiving Social Security Disability Income.
The current Social Security policy basically requires you to impoverish
yourself before you can get disability aid from the government.

 

And, fourth, we should pay a decent wage to the health care providers
who do such a superb job in tending to the needs of the disabled.

 

It's clear that the current economic hardship is being made much worse
for many people than it needs to be due to the disregard politicians and
policymakers have for the well-being of Americans with disabilities and
those who work in providing them with assistance.

 

It's time for that to change.

 

Mike Ervin is a Chicago-based writer and a disability-rights activist
with ADAPT (www.adapt.org). 

 

www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-200911040805mctnewsservbc-po
verty-progressive-,0,3993221.story 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://kilakwa.net/pipermail/nyaprs_kilakwa.net/attachments/20091105/91d7d764/attachment.html>