5 ms·

>The American disability system is basically proving (very painfully) that life is barely livable to get scraps of help. Like below poverty levels. Yep, SSI di

>The American disability system is basically proving (very painfully) that life is barely livable to get scraps of help. Like below poverty levels. Yep, SSI disability is a system designed to keep you in poverty. The current max benefit is a little more than $900 / mo. That's basically unlivable unless you also happen to have section 8 housing, which when I asked, had such a huge waitlist it was unusable. $900 / month is certainly not enough to have any sort of dignified life. It's a grim existence punctuated by constant worry over every purchase. I was on it from 18 to my mid 20's. Thankfully voc rehab helped me scrounge enough grants and scholarships together to pay for me to get a CS degree in '08. I've done quite well for myself since, but it's been a long road.

mrguyorama 3y ago
Also, the second you have slightly more than pocket cash to your name, all your disability and SSI type benefits go away. You cannot work yourself out of disability, because getting a job that can't exclusively pay for all your needs will still kill your benefits, leaving you worse off than the horrid poverty of exclusively relying on the government. So many people in America who are on government benefits for life would LOVE to work odd jobs or part time and contribute to the economy and buy like an xbox or something but they cannot, because they would then be kicked out of their housing program. It's absurd. Then these people on fixed, abysmal incomes are preyed upon by an entire industry who exists to skim off fees from the poor for everything from cashing checks, to hounding them for debts, to things like Dollar Tree where you can pay double the unit rate to buy a small portion of a normal product.
- dingnuts 3y ago
  >to things like Dollar Tree where you can pay double the unit rate to buy a small portion of a normal product. It seems like you're implying that Dollar Tree is unethical for putting forward an investment in order to take advantage of economies of scale and then paying for overhead, shipping, and retail space to sell their goods at a profit. What do you propose as an alternative to this? Should these goods be taken from those who are able to produce them at a wage set by the government and then distributed to those who need them, as prescribed by SSI, after nationalizing Dollar Tree and its ilk? How will the amount that the producers are owed for their labor be determined, or does this even matter? Or maybe if this kind of discount store is immoral, maybe it should be banned. Are you suggesting that the customers of Dollar Tree would be better off if they simply went without whatever wares Dollar Tree has? Or that individual consumers should somehow gain access to the economies of scale that arise with being able to afford, eg, an entire container ship full of junk coming from east Asia?
  - Karunamon 3y ago
    It is possible to think something sucks without thinking it needs to be regulated away with force. In the best possible world, their niche would not exist (would not be profitable) because they would have no target market, because everyone would be able to acquire basic necessities at regular grocery/big-box stores. A UBI scheme is far more productive in achieving that world then either of the (likely facetiously suggested) ideas you mentioned.
- wing-_-nuts 3y ago
  Mostly agreed on all of this. The only real way out for people on SSI, based on my experience, is to get a degree in a field where your disability doesn't hold you back. For me, this was computer science. However, I'm not about to go tell everyone on SSI the way out of that poverty trap is to simply 'learn to code'. I'm fully aware that 'learning to code' isn't even an option for most of the able bodied population, much less those dealing with disabilities. I simply don't hold out much hope that governments will ever allow those 'on disability' to live a dignified life.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    The majority of disabled people would much rather work a significant amount, but employers will turn away a hundred willing disabled employees over spending even ten bucks on accommodating their disability. I have a dwarf friend (his preferred terminology) who has a chemistry degree, and had to interview at fifty different places, including ten interviews at the same place where many of the managers knew him by name and wanted to hire him, before he finally got a job. This insanity included a previous place that he interviewed at that explicitly told another company not to hire him because he requires accommodation. That accommodation? A fucking tall stool for the lab bench.
    - wing-_-nuts 3y ago
      Yeah I have cerebral palsy. My one request for accommodation is that I be allowed to 'whiteboard' seated with pen and paper. This is often ignored. In the past, I didn't push the issue until I found myself solving a hard problem at a whiteboard in front of a panel of 7 people who peppered me with questions for the better part of an hour. Stress makes my spasticity worse, so by the end I was literally shaking. Afterward they provided feedback to the recruiter that while my solution worked, I didn't seem confident enough or cool under pressure. These days, I've done well enough for myself that I can push back. Remote interviews are especially nice. My current boss didn't even know I had a disability until we met in person months after I started.

mrguyorama 3y ago

Also, the second you have slightly more than pocket cash to your name, all your disability and SSI type benefits go away. You cannot work yourself out of disability, because getting a job that can't exclusively pay for all your needs will still kill your benefits, leaving you worse off than the horrid poverty of exclusively relying on the government. So many people in America who are on government benefits for life would LOVE to work odd jobs or part time and contribute to the economy and buy like an xbox or something but they cannot, because they would then be kicked out of their housing program. It's absurd. Then these people on fixed, abysmal incomes are preyed upon by an entire industry who exists to skim off fees from the poor for everything from cashing checks, to hounding them for debts, to things like Dollar Tree where you can pay double the unit rate to buy a small portion of a normal product.

dingnuts 3y ago
>to things like Dollar Tree where you can pay double the unit rate to buy a small portion of a normal product. It seems like you're implying that Dollar Tree is unethical for putting forward an investment in order to take advantage of economies of scale and then paying for overhead, shipping, and retail space to sell their goods at a profit. What do you propose as an alternative to this? Should these goods be taken from those who are able to produce them at a wage set by the government and then distributed to those who need them, as prescribed by SSI, after nationalizing Dollar Tree and its ilk? How will the amount that the producers are owed for their labor be determined, or does this even matter? Or maybe if this kind of discount store is immoral, maybe it should be banned. Are you suggesting that the customers of Dollar Tree would be better off if they simply went without whatever wares Dollar Tree has? Or that individual consumers should somehow gain access to the economies of scale that arise with being able to afford, eg, an entire container ship full of junk coming from east Asia?
- Karunamon 3y ago
  It is possible to think something sucks without thinking it needs to be regulated away with force. In the best possible world, their niche would not exist (would not be profitable) because they would have no target market, because everyone would be able to acquire basic necessities at regular grocery/big-box stores. A UBI scheme is far more productive in achieving that world then either of the (likely facetiously suggested) ideas you mentioned.
wing-_-nuts 3y ago
Mostly agreed on all of this. The only real way out for people on SSI, based on my experience, is to get a degree in a field where your disability doesn't hold you back. For me, this was computer science. However, I'm not about to go tell everyone on SSI the way out of that poverty trap is to simply 'learn to code'. I'm fully aware that 'learning to code' isn't even an option for most of the able bodied population, much less those dealing with disabilities. I simply don't hold out much hope that governments will ever allow those 'on disability' to live a dignified life.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  The majority of disabled people would much rather work a significant amount, but employers will turn away a hundred willing disabled employees over spending even ten bucks on accommodating their disability. I have a dwarf friend (his preferred terminology) who has a chemistry degree, and had to interview at fifty different places, including ten interviews at the same place where many of the managers knew him by name and wanted to hire him, before he finally got a job. This insanity included a previous place that he interviewed at that explicitly told another company not to hire him because he requires accommodation. That accommodation? A fucking tall stool for the lab bench.
  - wing-_-nuts 3y ago
    Yeah I have cerebral palsy. My one request for accommodation is that I be allowed to 'whiteboard' seated with pen and paper. This is often ignored. In the past, I didn't push the issue until I found myself solving a hard problem at a whiteboard in front of a panel of 7 people who peppered me with questions for the better part of an hour. Stress makes my spasticity worse, so by the end I was literally shaking. Afterward they provided feedback to the recruiter that while my solution worked, I didn't seem confident enough or cool under pressure. These days, I've done well enough for myself that I can push back. Remote interviews are especially nice. My current boss didn't even know I had a disability until we met in person months after I started.