Senator Paul’s comments regarding people with
disabilities and the assistance they receive that keep them a part of their
community shows that Mr. Paul desperately needs to be educated on the
facts. Most people do not wake up in the
morning and say to themselves, “Gee, I hope I get a disability today so that I
can ‘game the system’.” A large number
of individuals who receive disability payments paid into that system themselves
for a number of years, just like Social Security Retirement. We in the disability community were dismayed
to learn that our Senator made such insensitive remarks regarding the 874,000
individuals in Kentucky who have a disability.
Fraud in disability programs is estimated to amount to
less than 1 percent and is extremely rare, as the agency’s watchdog has found.
Its inaccurate payments rate is also less than 1 percent. SSDI payments are far
from comfortable, averaging $1,130 a month, just over the federal poverty line
and usually replacing less than half of a beneficiary’s previous earnings. Very
few beneficiaries are able to work and supplement that income: less than 17
percent worked at some point during the year in 2007, but less than 3 percent
of those people made more than $10,000 annually. People with disabilities do want to work but
lack of affordable and accessible transportation, unfounded biases by
employers, inaccessible work places, and continued stigma and negative
stereotypes by the general public and elected officials are huge barriers to
individuals with disabilities obtaining meaningful, gainful employment.
The Center for Accessible Living is an innovative leader
in empowering all people to achieve their goal of independent living. We work on a daily basis with people with
disabilities helping them to achieve independence and be integrated into the community. We invite Senator Paul to meet with us so
that we may share our concerns and educate him on the day-to-day reality of
people with disabilities and the discrimination they face every day.
Keith Hosey
Associate Director, Center for Accessible Living
