Amen
Amen
Alt Text:
Woman in a wheelchair saying: “THERE IS NO MARRIAGE EQUALITY UNTIL PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES CAN MARRY WITHOUT LOSING BENEFITS”
wait what the fuck
Just another way that the modern nazis fuck over the disabled.
It'd be just awesome if ANY candidate openly supported expanding disability rights to an equality level. Instead of trying to pander to people 'in the middle' who theoretically don't like nazis, but are very willing to work with them.
I honestly feel so much shame about not getting married bc I would lose my gov benefits. I've never thought about it like this and it makes me feel less ashamed.
Wait, they can't?
Where?
It's the US, isn't it? This is one of those US things where they don't feel the need to specify it's a US thing.
It’s the case in UK, Ireland, Belgium, Australia, Canada, the US, Italy, Greece etc.
Probably others, but those are the ones I know of.
Of course, it doesn’t necessarily mean you lose all your money if you marry, but your insurance income usually goes down quite harshly.
Specifically "disability" benefits or just overall social security transfers?
Bcs that might be due to the total household income too (and the fact that unfortunately a lot of ppl with disabilities & chronic pain don't have a lot of income).
(Overall we tend to be overly strict about such stuff bcs politicians often exploit it in a manner 'why should we pay for a millionaires basic wheelchair?!??' ... but I didn't know there was like a cut-off income point for overall benefits in terms of using them for specific medical things in Italy & Belgium, iirc that's not the case for glasses & basic dental care, tho the availability of the later in Italy is poor/really basic afaik.)That's messed up. Place I am you actually get extra benefits if you have a disabled person as a dependent.
Or you're supposed to, anyway, the paperwork sucks and there is a lot of malicious compliance from conservative authorities involved, but still.
There may be some areas where aid is tallied based on family income, but I don't know of any off the top of my head. That's more of a school grant thing, if anything.
It was the case in France a well until 2023
From the U.S. here, and the image is correct. My fiancé has chronic disabilities, with essentially no chance for recovery.
I'm employed as her caretaker, and I make about $30k/year doing so. She is on SNAP (food assistance), medicaid (government paid healthcare), and SSI (monthly payments to her bank account).
If we get married, it'll mean a massive cost for us, since very little of these benefits would carry over afterwards. I legally cannot be her caretaker if we're married, and my main job would put us in too high of a tax bracket for the rest of her benefits to go untouched.
It's a shockingly bad system.
I live in the US and had no idea this is how it worked. I shouldn’t be surprised-this place is a hellhole if you’re poor. Why would being disabled be any different?
Maybe some awareness is needed here. It might do nothing - but it for sure ain’t changing if people don’t know this goes on.
Oh man, it's complicated, John Oliver had a whole bit on it.
Basically if you're disabled and on federal assistance, you have to stay below a certain income level.
If you get married, that double income puts you over the limit and you lose your assistance. It's deeply fucked up.
24 minutes, NSFW:
Marriage bit is around the 20 minute mark, but really, everyone should watch the whole thing.
That's extremely dumb. The obvious way to measure income limits is income per capita. Also, being officially married shouldn't make a difference.
Whatever, I'm deliberately trying to block US discourse. Best of luck to anybody dealing with it, but I'm actively trying to make my Internet be as little about the US as possible, so I'm walking away now.
It's US here, but even more specifically, an 'adult disabled since childhood' can not get married to anyone but another 'adult disabled since childhood' or all the benefits are removed. Entirely.
Which sucks cause guess what classification my husband with cerebral palsy has?? Oh well, eternal fiance for me I guess. Fiancee? One of them.
Fiancé
Not just the US, but yeah, definitely here.
If you see something dystopian, its from the us 🤷♀️
And inevitably someone from that country, already fucked by said system, will pop-up & defend it how much sense it makes (so let's not bash it too much).
:(
My husband is disabled and receives SSDI (US). I did the math when he was awarded disability and he would be getting a lot more if we weren't married. We had a very long discussion and long story short marriage was more important to us than money. Since we're married the money is counted as income and I am the one who pays taxes on it. He qualified for Medicare too after the first five years on SSDI and that comes out of his benefits as well. I still buy insurance for him through my employer which I pay out the ass for but it's worth it with his medical conditions and should I lose my job he still has his Medicare to fall back on. I dare say I pay almost as much for his medical needs as we get from the disability payments. We aren't by any means rich but we have the basics and that's enough. My heart breaks for him and others in the same or worse situations. His own family will say that they love him with one breath and then disparage those "freeloaders" with the other. Since the beginning of the year we've been religiously watching our bank account in horror wondering when the checks will just stop coming. It took years of hard work and tough decisions to get us both to a place of stability and productivity that now could disappear in an instant because we are the collateral damage in a rich folk's pissing match. I hope they all rot in hell.
Wait disability is taxed in the US? What the actual fluff!
I feel this. If my wife got disability we could remodel our place more properly for disability. We have gotten by but just barely and she would have so much less pain each day if we just had a bit more resources.
Bro you are clearly being lazy, how about she just stops being disabled /S
that jesse wells song gets me so much as the lyrics are like this. "if you just worked a little harder"
What's the artist's name? Would love to find more disability-centric art
Looks like liberaljane
Thank you!
Hell yes, this is so important!
What are the perks of marrying in the first place?
Non comprehensive, and only vaguely important to me, but being married would mean Healthcare decisions would fall to me automatically, if he dies I'd automatically be assumed to gain his belongings and home rather than very likely have his family contest his will that says the same thing but they could argue that more. They could come in and take over everything were anything to happen to him, and not allow me to see him. No survivor benefits if not married. I'm sure there's a lot more.
Boomers treat you like a real person
In Australia, we have a sort-of equivalent to common law marriage called "de facto" status. It kicks in at the one year mark and carries the exact same negative effects on a disability pension. Actually, I think the effects on welfare and disability payments occurs the second you're living with someone you're in a relationship with.
We're incredibly lucky. My wife basically gets a salary from our health insurance to care for me.