Disabilities

Every Issue Is A Disability Issue

December 26, 2022 Janine Jackson, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting. Educate! Disabilities, Health Care, Human Rights, Medicaid

Hey, have you heard about “Medicaid divorce”? It’s this trendy thing where people get divorced because it’s the only way to allow one partner to qualify for the Medicaid they need to live their lives, because if they’re married, they’re too rich. That’s a nightmare, not to mention in a country where some people get to forget how many houses they own. But corporate media’s response has seemed to be just a bunch of articles about how maybe you, as an individual, might potentially game the system, like Kiplinger‘s “How to Restructure Your Assets to Qualify for Medicaid.” And then sort of, “well, would you look at that” pieces about the phenomenon, like Newsweek‘s “Internet Backs Wife’s Plan to Divorce Husband After Cancer Diagnosis.” There are, of course, many people who couldn’t conscience the idea that having a disability, or a partner with a disability, should mean choosing between your marriage and your healthcare.

Disabled Rebels Call For ‘New Blood’ In Advance Of Extinction Rebellion Action

October 6, 2019 John Pring, Disability News Service. Resist! climate crisis, Disabilities, Extinction Rebellion

Together with a group called Deaf Rebels, they hope to play a key part in the UK actions, which will include a “central focus” on Westminster and will last two weeks from Monday (7 October). Bob Williams-Findlay, a leading figure in the Disabled Rebels group and a veteran of many non-violent direct action protests, has called for “new blood” to join the Extinction Rebellion (XR) Disabled Rebels and Deaf Rebels. He hopes that as many as 100 or even 150 Deaf and disabled people will take part in non-violent direct action in London. If that happens, the numbers taking part will be greater than those who took part in direct action in the campaign for accessible transport and in the Disabled People’s Direct Action Network in the 1980s and 1990s.

Disability And Poverty For Adults In 2016

February 22, 2018 By Matt Bruenig, Peoplespolicyproject.org Educate! Disabilities, New Economy, Poverty

In 2016, there were 126.3 million adults between the ages of 25 and 54. Around 7.9 million (6.3 percent) of those adults had one or more of the six serious disabilities tracked by the Census. As you would expect, disability rates start out low for younger individuals and slowly creep up with age. In 2016, 13.4 percent of 54-year-olds were disabled while just 3.5 percent of 25-year-olds were. Disabled people have far higher poverty rates than their nondisabled peers. In 2016, the market income poverty rate for disabled people was 44.4 percent while the disposable income poverty rate (i.e. income that includes benefits like SSDI and SSI) was 28.9 percent. The same figures for the nondisabled were 11.7 percent and 9.7 percent respectively. Remarkably, poverty does not differ that much by disability type with the exception of those who have hearing disabilities.

Disability Community Rejects Appointee Who Supports Subminimum Wage And Segregated Housing

October 9, 2014 Center for Disability Rights, www.cdrnys.org Organize! Disabilities, Government, Housing, Law

The Center for Disability Rights is deeply concerned that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has appointed Bob Brown, a proponent of subminimum wage and segregated housing, to serve on the National Council on Disability (NCD), an independent federal agency charged with advising the President, Congress, and other federal agencies regarding policies, programs, practices, and procedures that affect people with disabilities. While NCD appointees have previously been appointed by the President, a new provision in the Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act allows four Council Members whose terms are about to expire to be replaced by appointments made by the Senate Majority Leader, the Senate Minority Leader, the Speaker of the House, and the House Minority Leader. NCD’s membership will also be reduced from fifteen to nine as the next six Council members will not be replaced when their terms expire.

Man Uses Wheelchair To Protest Enbridge

September 8, 2014 Frank Peebles, www.princegeorgecitizen.com Resist! Civil Disobedience, Disabilities, Enbridge, Pipeline, Protest

A Toronto man is wheeling his way along the general route of the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline project, and halted Prince George traffic as he did so. David Clow, a C6 quadriplegic, deliberately held up the travelling lanes on Victoria Street, Tuesday morning. At each set of traffic lights he tarried long after the light turned green in order to stack up vehicles behind him by the time he had gone a few blocks through the downtown. It was an act of civil disobedience aimed at causing unexpected awareness about the message on the back of his wheelchair: opposition to the pipeline. Imagine how inconvenienced you'd feel, he said, if the pipeline ever leaked, or worse. "Northern Gateway is such a risk," he said. "That risk is being put on the environment of this area, and the people of this area, and whatever jobs they're talking about just doesn't add up to accepting that risk." Within days of passing through previous towns in Alberta, existing pipelines did rupture, he said, sending him even more momentum to carry on his difficult journey. He attended a Tar Sands Healing Walk in June in the Fort McMurray area and was embraced so movingly by the resident aboriginal people for wheeling those 14 kilometres that he was seized by the idea of the Enbridge route - a distance 10 times that distance. He is now approximately two-thirds of the way to Kitimat where the proposed pipeline would end.

Protests Seek To Occupy Westminster Abbey Over Cuts To Disabled

June 30, 2014 Huffington Post UK, www.huffingtonpost.co.uk Resist! Austerity, Disabilities, Occupy, Protest, United Kingdom (UK)

Campaigners have tried to occupy the grounds of Westminster Abbey in protest against the Government's decision to axe a fund for the disabled. The move, reminsicent of the long protest occupation at St Paul's Cathedral in 2011, saw at least ten police vans were part of a heavy police presence, with officers at times three rows deep to deal with around 100 protesters. The Guardian reported the protestors had planned to occupy the space until July 22 but the police presence caused the number of protestors to dwindle to around 50. The BBC reported that the protest ended at around 9pm on Saturday. The group had sent a letter to Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, urging the Church of England not to forcibly remove them, The Guardian reported. Tents were erected on the grass and draped with banners against the planned closure of the Independent Living Fund (ILF) for severely disabled people. Protesters claimed their attempts to negotiate their presence on the Abbey's grounds with the Dean of Westminster, Dr John Hall, had been rejected and they had been advised by police to leave the grounds or face arrest. Many moved on but a group of disabled protesters, many in wheelchairs, stayed on to continue the protest.

$2.75 an Hour? The Shocking Secret of Goodwill

December 14, 2013 Jodie Gummow, www.alternet.org Educate! Disabilities, Worker Rights and Jobs

In the back rooms of Goodwill stores, disabled workers make far less then the federal wage of $7.25 an hour because of loophole in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Former Goodwill employee, Sheila Leland, who is legally blind, said she had to quit her job at a local Goodwill after her employer reduced her hourly wage from $3.50 to $2.75 per hour. Such actions perfectly legal, based on the law's assumption that people with disabilities are not as productive as able-bodied individuals. But advocates such as Marc Maurer, president of the National Federation of the Blind, says such laws are unfair and unethical. “The sheltered workshop system takes people and systemically tells them they are not as good as the rest of the workforce,” he said.

Americans With Disabilities Action Report

September 29, 2013 Staff, www.adapt.org Resist! Disabilities, Freedom of Speech and Assembly

Americans with disabilities have fought and won many freedoms in our nation, but when times are hard our basic liberties are in jeopardy. But just like Americans of the past, we will not allow our nation to step backward toward oppression and segregation. Wherever you are, join with ADAPT to say "My Medicaid Matters!" On Sunday, September 29th begin following the ADAPT action right here. Each morning the ADAPT Action Report will bring photos, news and commentary directly from activists in the streets. Activists have arrived at the Capitol Hill Holiday Inn for a week of direct action to strengthen the ADAPT thirty-year Campaign to Free Our People! ADAPT's first national action was in 1983 to end the segregation of people with disabilities in this country; starting with the public transit systems that would not put lifts on buses. After the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, the focus of ADAPT turned to ending the institutional bias in Medicaid that segregates people in expensive institutions and nursing homes.

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