I'm repeating some old posts during this slow time of the year for Social Security news. Here's one from July:
From TPM Cafe:
Twenty-five years ago this past Sunday, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law. Today, people with disabilities are less likely to be employed than they were before the law was enacted. Workers with disabilities earn, on average, about $14,000 less than similar workers without disabilities. About one in every three disabled Americans lives in poverty.
4 comments:
I totally agree. People on SSDI have a very difficult time...it is like a black mark on your application for employment.
ADA left much to be desired. Many people cannot access simple everyday situations like a quickmart at the gas station. Ramps are blocked by sale items, counters are too high, braille and low vision items are not marked, and little assistance for deaf/low hearing.
In the workplace nothing has changed. Employers fear hiring a person with a disability because of "liability" concerns. Another popular excuse is that they do not want to make exceptions for one employee and not for others.
Ask anyone in a wheelchair, with a white cane or service dog, or those that use sign language what it is like going into an interview. That look of shock when the interviewer comes out. That look that says this interview is over before they even ask the first question because they do not know if they should reach out to shake your hand.
Those are the visible disabilities. It is even worse for those with conditions that do not manifest themselves in an easily noticed way. ADD or ADHD, bipolar, a bad back, difficulty breathing, reduced mobility and lower ability to handle small items or move large ones immediately send out messages to hiring agents that say NOOOOOOO!
When the labor pool is high, those with disability stand the same chance as a snow ball in July in Death Valley. Even in times of high employment it is difficult.
The problem is not with the disabled, but with those doing the hiring and the inability to get past their discomfort and lack of understanding. ADA can change curb cuts and add ramps, but it does nothing for changing stigma and minds.
Try and file a complaint with the ADA? That's another bunch of hooey.
When it comes to disabled workers, they send the complaints to the DOL(another joke) after going to congress & then it goes back to the state WCAB, wow, where our problems all started after the employer decided that injuring workers was very profitable, so as not to pay the wages or the comp benefits. It's all a rigged enterprise. There needs to be more than an attitude adjustment with employers, there needs to be an adjustment, such as ridding of top employees who bank on enforcing wrong headed policies in the ADA agency itself, right after the EEOC, DOJ, DOL, WCAB,SSA, etc... Something rotten in fed govt. My question is this any way to run a government?
I see this as keeping higher paid workers out of the workplace, period. When especially the disabled held real experienced higher paid jobs. It is all about keeping slave labor standards.
Too many Republicans want to squeeze the disabled on both ends. They don't want to force businesses to employ people who are unable to the work without accomodations, including additional time off. On the other hand, they don't want to pay SSDI or SSI for those who can no longer work and try to justify their selfishness by "alleging" fraud. The real fraud is those who are denied by DDS and ALJs for "lack of Credibility" based on a Residual Functional Capacity Form which is frankly just someone's opinion. As for the records it may be based upon, I am frankly perplexed about how confident so many doctors are in their "remedies." I can't count how many times I have told my doctors that a medication "may have helped, some," has been translated into the "treatment is working well!"
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