Thank you for this - I’ve been in the voc rehab field for a long time and I learned a lot reading this.

Thank you!

This is a valuable article. I especially appreciate the description of the treacherous benefit cliff that awaits people with disabilities who try to earn a little extra money. A friend of mine in California stitches together a subsistence living from SSDI, a project-based housing voucher, SNAP, and a small disability supplement from the state. Before acquiring her disability she used to love working at her local polling place on election day, a one-day job that netted her around $100 a couple times a year and gave her a chance to interact with the community. But she can't do that anymore (even though she's still physically capable of it) because all the agencies she gets benefits from would want a piece of her earnings, and she'd end up less well-off than she started. This has to be addressed. I understand the need for public benefit resource tests but the limits on what's allowable should be considerably higher than they are. That's the real "welfare dependency" issue Republicans are always harping about but aren't willing to seriously address.