Category Archives: disability

disability, poverty

A 2026 Example of Legislated Poverty

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Hey followers, I know it’s been a while.

As you can imagine, the last six years have taken a lot out of me and a lot from me. I put everything I had into fighting COVID eugenics, and yet here we are in this prolonged ongoing pandemic in a worse place than we began.

I’m also currently reeling from the recent, huge loss of Alice Wong. I’m engulfed in grief about losing her, losing Tinu Abayomi-Paul last year, and losing so many other disabled community members in between.

I have many life updates for you all, but I can’t go there right now. I’m beyond capacity for going deep and I’m going to listen to my brain and body about that.

There’s no way to introduce the topic of this post other than diving right in.

The realities of living in legislated poverty are not widely discussed, so I write about them in various places and at various times to educate folks who have no idea.

You can read all of the general statistics, but it sometimes doesn’t make sense until someone tells you their own story, because that’s real. That’s tangible.

I’m writing this to share a single personal example about the intertwining of federal and state public aid systems that are designed to keep the poorest people poor, while those who write the legislation claim it helps people thrive.

Capitalist systems are designed to punish people who do not, cannot, produce profit.

I was granted SSDI in 2018. It’s hard to believe that was nearly eight years ago already. It’ll take another two years for me to have received enough SSDI to match the annual salary of the administrative law judge who approved my case.

Anyhow,

…towards the end of each year, the Social Security Administration announces the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for people who receive Social Security benefits. The COLA for disability benefits recipients is a monthly increase that’s based on a comparison of the economy during the previous year’s third quarter and the current year’s third quarter.

Some years there’s no increase at all (2010, 2011, 2016). The highest ever increase was in 1980 (14.3%). The most recent “big” increase was in 2023 (8.7%).

This coming year, 2026, the increase is 2.8%. For me on SSDI, that is an additional $36/month.

Fortunately (hilariously), I’m poor enough that my Medicare premium is covered by California, but for many the COLA isn’t enough to cover the annual increase in Medicare premiums or it is mostly swallowed. 2025’s standard Medicare premium is $185/month. 2026’s is $202.90. That’s an increase of $17.90.

Let’s pretend for a moment that I needed to pay that increase; that means $17.90 taken out of my COLA of $36, which leaves me with $18.10/month “extra.”

Ok, let that sit for a moment.

Now, let’s shift to SNAP (formerly food stamps). Because of my SSDI increase, my monthly SNAP allotment has been automatically decreased by $16.

Remember, I had $18.10 left of my COLA after the example of me needing to cover the Medicare premium increase?

Now let’s subtract the $16 that was removed from my monthly SNAP amount, which overall leaves me with a $2.10 COLA. That’s enough for a candy bar each month, yay!

Except don’t forget the cost of food is ever increasing.

Ok, let all that sit for a moment.

And come back to my reality, which is less bad on a miniscule level.

Since I don’t have to cover the Medicare premium increase (or the premium at all, which makes me extremely lucky — imagine that, being lucky I’m that poor that the state covers it), I just have to remove the loss in food stamps ($16) from the COLA ($36), which leaves me with a $20 monthly increase in income for 2026.

My friends and I joke every year about what I could buy with my annual increase in riches, so that could cover, what, a half a tank of gas? Two or three dozen eggs? A pony!?

What do you spend $20/month on? What do you spend $20/day on?

Here’s a bonus, complicated tidbit for your anger:

Disability income (SSDI) is based on how much people made before becoming disabled. It’s not based on need. It’s not based on how disabled someone is. It’s not based on location. It’s based on capitalism’s perspective of how valuable a person is based on the profit they were producing before their body and/or mind could not produce that profit any longer.

And that means that SSDI income calculations parallel gender, race, class and age pay gaps, for example.

A final, important, and infuriating note: I’m far from the poorest SSDI recipient, so my increase is way more than many. And I haven’t even touched on how excruciatingly worse it is for SSI recipients.

That’s it for now, folks. Let me know how this info sits with you, and feel free to comment with your own experience.

Keep fighting, friends, and keep keeping community alive. OK?

If you’re curious to learn more about what I’ve shared, I urge you to do some reading about benefits cliffs; asset limits; and especially about disability marriage inequality (I highly recommend watching Patrice: The Movie!), which affects SSI recipients more than SSDI recipients, but it gets complicated when you add in Medicaid and SNAP and such regardless of the benefits source.

disability, public speaking, Women's Rights

Disability Justice: 2020 Sacramento Women’s March

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I spoke at the 2020 Sacramento Women’s March about disability justice.

Below is video (by Denice Ristau) and the transcript.

Disability Justice

Transcript:

Is there power in standing up?

That was a trick question.

Is there power in sitting down?

I’m disabled whether I’m standing or sitting. And I’m powerful both ways!

So, let’s change this phrasing: is there power in showing up?

Let me tell you about Rosa.

Rosa May Billinghurst would ram her wheelchair into police during protests in the early 1900s. She continued using her wheelchair to make a path for herself even after being violently thrown out of her chair intentionally damaged by police.

Rosa was called “the cripple suffragette.”

Rosa claimed her space and she made it known she would be counted as a disabled woman and nothing less.

So I’m here to tell you:

Continue reading Disability Justice: 2020 Sacramento Women’s March →

disability, poverty

The Privilege of Having Enough

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Black Friday, the day that foreshadows how the market will perform through the new year, was actually a dark day in history (in case you didn’t know) representing a large-scale financial crisis because of greedy Wall Street financers in the 1800s.

Gosh, sounds familiar.

Now we’ve reclaimed the meaning of that day, or rather, corporations have reclaimed it and turned it into a day of splurging and materialism. Cash flows from regular folks’ pockets into the wallets of billionaires and executives who source labor from the underemployed and materials from China. I mean, I am exaggerating a little.

A little.

Let’s Back Up a Bit

I used to spend the day after Thanksgiving going on hikes or long runs and enjoying how empty everything was that wasn’t a store. The outside world was my oyster for that quiet, quiet day.

I refused to utter the words “Black Friday” because I staunchly opposed what the day had come to mean: greed and a blatant disregard for the environmental destruction that comes with unfettered materialism.

Instead, I called it Buy Nothing Day along with millions of other environmentalists who human-cott the spending spree that is Black Friday.

On Buy Nothing Day, I distanced myself from over-stressed employees and screaming throngs of people breaking down doors, running people over, and fighting over highly discounted flat-screen televisions. I was horrified by this violence that resulted in mountains of plastic, cardboard, and Styrofoam and; inevitably, piles of broken electronics and discarded toys after mere months of use.

To me, Black Friday represented the worst humanity has to offer – a piling up of vices so-to-speak – and I stayed as far away as possible.

Then My Life Changed

In 2013 I was diagnosed with a disease that runs in my family (Ankylosing Spondylitis)  that upended my world and disabled me in a matter of a few years. Continue reading The Privilege of Having Enough →

disability, poverty

I’m Impoverished & Disabled. I’m About to Be a Homeowner in California.

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I moved to Sacramento in 2011 because it was one of the most affordable big cities in California. The cost of living was fairly similar to Raleigh, NC at the time (where I lived before moving to California). In recent years Sacramento has faced one of the fastest climbing housing booms in the nation as a result of Bay Area residents moving in. Rent has climbed at astronomical rates, and so has the price of homes. Low-income and affordable housing has not been a priority to the city and region, and homelessness has grown as a result.

In 2013 I was diagnosed with the same disease that killed my father, Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS). My health deteriorated and I became disabled and impoverished as a result of not being able to work.

Ten days ago, on January 23rd, 2019, when I woke up I didn’t know I would be writing an offer on a house that night. I didn’t think it was even possible.

But when I saw a listing pop up in the MLS search that evening for a house I could afford, I told my real estate agent (who also has AS), “I want a house more than anything. I want to move on this.”

Continue reading I’m Impoverished & Disabled. I’m About to Be a Homeowner in California. →