Getting thrown off a cliff

 So it's no secret that I'm disabled, and have been for a few years now. Let me tell you the learning curve is steep! Especially when it comes to the government. There is so little I knew about disability law, support assistance, and government healthcare before I found myself wading through the bureaucratic system essentially solo (shoutout to my mom and friend Angie for all they did to help!). It was terrifying. And I had success, putting me in the "lucky" top 20%, so I know it could have been so much worse.

Why does this matter to anyone else? Well, for starters, anyone could become disabled on any day of the week, and most of us will be disabled at some point in our lives (though most commonly in old age). You have literally zero control of when it could happen; for all you know you're already a ticking time bomb like I was, or there's a car crash coming, or any other thousands of things. Plus, studies are showing that with each time a person catches Covid, there's a 30% chance they'll be stuck with Long-covid, which is very much a disability, and while some are temporary, plenty are permanent. So really, everyone rolls the dice on becoming disabled every single day dozens of times. It's coming. You might want to be ready.

Secondly, even if that doesn't happen, I need you to learn more about how these systems work, because your vote can have a very profound and direct impact on my life very quickly.  For example, as I write this, the GOP is proposing legislation that would require minimum work hours for those receiving Medicaid. So first, we'll review a few facts about what it's like to "live off the dole" and how that's not actually a quality way of life. Then, I'd like to give you a hypothetical about why, not only are work mandates bad for those dependent on the system, but they can actually make life a whole lot worse for people who are already struggling just to get through.

So, I have been approved by the state of Florida and the Federal Government as fully disabled and unable to "sustain meaningful employment" due to my health disabilities. Of all the people who apply for disability, both the Social Security Disability Income (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI), about 80% of applicants are rejected their first application, and the chances of success upon appeal are quite low as well. I did not have enough work credits to qualify for SSDI because I had to leave the workforce at 26 years old, and my work history for a few years in college was mainly (lucrative) off-book babysitting and house/pet-sitting jobs for which I paid no taxes.If you've managed to work fully time for 20 years prior to the disability becoming insurmountable, you'd get a larger payment than I do.  I qualified for SSI, which is for individuals who don't qualify for SSDI and are still considered fully disabled. This benefit gives me Medicaid access and a monthly stipend for living expenses, but thankfully I still have a positive relationship with family who is able to help support me further. Because, through SSI, I receive a whopping $914/month, which cannot possibly cover rent + food + clothes, much less anything else like a car or the occasional meal out, or other necessary things like electrical bills, auto insurance, etc. And, to be fair, I also receive a $35/month voucher for over the counter necessities like vitamins, sunscreen, cold medicine, and feminine hygiene supplies.

The Federal Poverty Line for a single individual in the United States is about $300/month MORE than what I recieve, even with those benefits.  That's right, to be in poverty, I would need to make an additional $3600 per year. But I can't.

Because there are strings on these benefits. I may own a house and a car, but beyond that I cannot have more than $2k worth of assets to my name, so there's no way to save for any sort of emergency or repairs to said house or car, and if I don't already have a house or car, there's no way to save up for a down payment or to save and pay with cash. I'm just screwed

BUT ALSO, I'm only allowed to earn $65/month in income, if I'm able, because after $65, for every $1 I might make, I LOSE $0.50 in benefits out of that $914. So if I could take a stipended gig for Faithful Access for a one day course on Disability and the Church, and let's say they only pay me $100 for the day, I also lose $17.50 in my monthly benefits. If, for some reason, I was able to earn more that $1913/month, or amass more than $2000 in savings, I would be kicked off of SSI as no longer disabled because they would consider me able to "sustain meaningful employment". AND I would also lose all Medicaid benefits, which, since the prescriptions I take daily amount to nearly $3,000/month without insurance, I'd be in a VERY big hole. So here I sit. Permanently dependent and forced into poverty (again, a very bougie poverty thanks to the care and financial resources of my family who, for whatever reason, love me a lot). Unfortunately, many folks in a similar position to mine are, because of these realities, FORCED to stay in abusive situations with family or spouse because they do not have any hope of being able to afford to leave. In dire cases, there are news stories of disabled adult children dying in filth and neglect while their parents keep their government stipend and ignore them. It is a dangerous precedent and honestly, in 2023, we should really be able to do better by our most vulnerable citizens.

Brasilia was located in a plateau region with the 
houses usually built on top to avoid flooding,
so often, the roads just...stop

Now, thanks for hanging with me, let's talk about this current legislation piece. Let us envision a single parent with just one child. The parent qualifies the family for Medicaid based on need, and works part-time because the toddler only has extended family some times to watch them while the parent works. It is technically irrelevant if either the parent or the toddler has a pre-existing condition requiring higher-than-usual levels of medical care, but I'd like you to keep that possibility in the back of your mind.  So let's say this Medicaid work credit legislation passes at the federal level. Now the parent has to meed a minimum number of work hours (most likely at minimum or low wage). They still have childcare for only the part-time hours they worked before, and if you haven't seen news coverage in a few years, the cost of childcare is pretty high. But to keep medical benefits, they have to work, so they have to pay MORE for childcare than they earn in the extra hours they're working.  So now they have less monthly income than before, which is likely to put their spending in jeopardy. (Plus extra hours and less $$ = more stressed parent) When it comes to deciding if your child should eat, be clothed, or have somewhere to live, the straw that usually gives out is housing costs. Now this parent, who is working more hours and spending less time with their child than before, has to scrounge up lower cost housing, which means with family (best case) or in a vehicle (or worse). Who is better off because of this legislation? Not the parent. Not the kid (because we KNOW what happens to kids who live with early life trauma like homelessness). Now what if we add back in those potential health needs I stated earlier? Does homelessness get the parent reported as an unfit parent and land the kid in foster care? (which, again, we KNOW is traumatic for the child and parent, and without a dependent, the parent would no longer get Medicaid anyways in many states, plus now the government is picking up the tab for the child's care in the foster system, so is any money even saved here?)

Personally, considering these very real scenarios would take place by the thousands, it makes me wanna just kinda slap the legislature and say "Really?" because the same representatives that claim they want this to be a Christian nation are proposing this, and NOTHING in that outcome is Loving. Nothing there is of God. And it's not difficult to see that.

These types of things are what is called a "Benefits Cliff", or the point at which, for someone receiving help, it is far safer to stop trying for better because you risk your literal life if you lose what you have. And in so many cases, elected folks and those that voted for them are completely willing to shove us off that cliff in the same of saving a few bucks.