Most working-age people with disabilities are not financially healthy, study finds
Fifty percent of working-age people with disabilities have annual household incomes less than $30,000.
The Financial Health of People with Disabilities: Key Obstacles and Opportunities was released by the Financial Health Network this week, and revealed a majority of working-age people with disabilities are not financially healthy.
Even worse, 1 in 3 working-age people with disabilities are characterized as “financially vulnerable.” Financially vulnerable individuals struggle to meet expenses, have little to no emergency savings, and maintain burdensome levels of debt. The Financial Health Network’s findings suggest that barriers to financial health for people with disabilities are multifaceted, but can be offset by furthered inclusivity, better financial services and public benefit design, improved credit access, and asset building opportunities.
“Thirty-three years have passed since the Americans with Disabilities Act, yet it is an unfortunate reality that financial health remains inaccessible to so many people in America,” said Jennifer Tescher, founder and CEO of the Financial Health Network.
People with disabilities cite a wide variety of barriers to employment. Negative attitudes in workplaces, insufficient workplace accommodations, transportation difficulties, a lack of education/training, and concern about losing benefits are all issues that are commonly reported.
- 50% of working-age people with disabilities have annual household incomes less than $30,000
- 40% of people with disabilities who are not working would like to be
- People with disabilities are more likely to use costly alternative credit services (payday loans, pawn, title loans, and tax refund anticipation loans) than those without disabilities
While these challenges are extremely complicated, there is potential for greater inclusivity in employment, financial service design, credit access, and asset building opportunities.
One promising solution to these complicated asset limits is the ABLE account. That being said, ABLE accounts typically remain unused and poorly understood. SSI and Medicaid create limitations to beneficiaries, but ABLE accounts allow eligible individuals to accumulate assets without losing these benefits.
Less than 1% have an ABLE account, and everyone surveyed had less than $10,000 in their accounts. In addition to low account ownership, a general lack of knowledge about ABLE accounts was evident. More than 90% of survey respondents said they were unfamiliar with the account or how it worked.
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“The ADA changed the landscape of workplace accommodations in the United States,” said Daniel Van Sant, director of Disability Policy at The Harkin Institute. “However, this data shows that there is still so much more that employers could do to make their workplaces and the benefits of work fully accessible.”