Hard Times for Children with Disabilities

Advocates for children with disabilities are mostly unimpressed by Sarah Palin's profession of support for children with disabilities, based on her history and policy positions. But the attention generated by her use of the issue should be good for something.

In fact, disabilities play a large, and growing, role in the growing gulf between rich and poor in this country - and around the world, for that matter, as 80% of people with disabilities live in poor countries. In recent years, we have learned that the 1996 welfare reform put the squeeze on families where mothers and/or their children have disabilities. As a result of policy changes and the tightening job market, among single mothers with disabilities, fewer are employed and fewer are receiving any form of government assistance.

Source: Calculated from 2006 American Community Survey (U.S. Census Bureau).

The evidence on well-being among children with disabilities is consistent and distressing. In this country, children with disabilities are more likely to be poor, more likely to live with parents who have less education, and more likely to live in single-parent (especially single-mother) families - where the resources available to them are stretched to the limit.

A rigorous new study by Susan Parish and her colleagues at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill shows that our measurement of poverty is especially inadequate when it comes to identifying hardship among families where children have disabilities. Using high quality, nationally representative data, they found that not only are children with disabilities more likely to be poor, but even among those with higher-income families, children with disabilities were much more likely to experience food, housing, or medical hardships. The data illustrate a well-known feedback loop, through which poverty contributes to disabilities and disabilities increase poverty and hardship.

History shows us that the dog-eat-dog marketplace has a solution for people with disabilities, those who care for them, and others who are unable to compete effectively - but can't we find a better one?

Comments

[kathykathy]

To linlou34 I'm a mom of four daughters. My youngest is retarded. She will be seventeen in a couple of months. When our income was quite a bit lower we qualified for SSI for her. You can often get help through your school system. Also it's important to know until the age of 18 their eligibility for SSI is based on YOUR income. After they reach 18 it's based on THEIR income. Be sure to reapply!! Many of those you may see getting benefits may be getting them for older children who receive the benefit based on the child's income - which is most often zero because they can't work. It's really tough because special needs kids come with special needs expenses! At least once they reach 18 there's a better chance some help will be there!

[Philip N. Cohen - Huffpost Blogger]

I'm very sorry to hear that story. The inability of many people to get benefits they need is a big part of this story. One fallout from the welfare reform was that some states pushed people from welfare to disability benefits to get their welfare numbers down, but then didn't help them get disability, so they ended up with no benefits. As you point out, though, as with health insurance, sometimes the people who don't get support are those with too much to qualify but too little to get what they need for their families.

[linlou34]

You know, Phil, I know people who have children with disabilities who always seem to have plenty of money and yet they get SSI and welfare benefits. My husband and I are a single income family and SSI will not approve my son. They claim we have too much income. LOL, ok so that really explains why we can not make our monthly bills on time. Then they say it is because we have too many assets. You can go thru the list of our assets and not come up, even close, to the $20,000 limit. Oh, and by the way, that number changes each and every time I have applied. We are denied because it is their job to deny us. We get very little help for our son.
It does not help that our economy has taken a big dive in the sewer either. It is sickening that the ones that need it most get little to nothing. I know that my child would be so much more advanced if it wasn't for our money problems.