Alt Text:
Woman in a wheelchair saying: “THERE IS NO MARRIAGE EQUALITY UNTIL PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES CAN MARRY WITHOUT LOSING BENEFITS”
wait what the fuck
this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2025
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Chronic Illness
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Just another way that the modern nazis fuck over the disabled.
It'd be just awesome if ANY candidate openly supported expanding disability rights to an equality level. Instead of trying to pander to people 'in the middle' who theoretically don't like nazis, but are very willing to work with them.
I honestly feel so much shame about not getting married bc I would lose my gov benefits. I've never thought about it like this and it makes me feel less ashamed.
Wait, they can't?
Where?
It's the US, isn't it? This is one of those US things where they don't feel the need to specify it's a US thing.
It’s the case in UK, Ireland, Belgium, Australia, Canada, the US, Italy, Greece etc.
Probably others, but those are the ones I know of.
Of course, it doesn’t necessarily mean you lose all your money if you marry, but your insurance income usually goes down quite harshly.
Specifically "disability" benefits or just overall social security transfers?
Bcs that might be due to the total household income too (and the fact that unfortunately a lot of ppl with disabilities & chronic pain don't have a lot of income).
(Overall we tend to be overly strict about such stuff bcs politicians often exploit it in a manner 'why should we pay for a millionaires basic wheelchair?!??' ... but I didn't know there was like a cut-off income point for overall benefits in terms of using them for specific medical things in Italy & Belgium, iirc that's not the case for glasses & basic dental care, tho the availability of the later in Italy is poor/really basic afaik.)
Well it’s the welfare people with disabilities (who cannot work due to their disability) are eligeable for. The system is different in every country but usually you have a base rate that is not enough to survive on (in the US it tends to be 8k per year, other countries aren’t much more generous), and hopefully you also qualify for other help, like maybe food stamps or subsidised energy payments.
In most of the countries I listed, both of those are slashed down or straight up removed if you marry someone with income, but especially the second. Which basically removes any freedom for the disabled person in the relationship and makes it way easier for abusive relationships to happen.
Because you end up having a huge power imbalance. You cannot fight for yourself, you rely on your partner for your daily care or for transport if you need to go anywhere. You also rely on them for money etc. The relationship can end up as heirarchical as a Parent/Child relationship. So it’s really a problem that if you choose to marry you lose all your independence.
(in the US it tends to be 8k per year, other countries aren’t much more generous)
I'm in Australia and get US$21.1k. Completely untaxed, and I can work up to ~15 hours before it affects my payment.
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That's messed up. Place I am you actually get extra benefits if you have a disabled person as a dependent.
Or you're supposed to, anyway, the paperwork sucks and there is a lot of malicious compliance from conservative authorities involved, but still.
There may be some areas where aid is tallied based on family income, but I don't know of any off the top of my head. That's more of a school grant thing, if anything.
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From the U.S. here, and the image is correct. My fiancé has chronic disabilities, with essentially no chance for recovery.
I'm employed as her caretaker, and I make about $30k/year doing so. She is on SNAP (food assistance), medicaid (government paid healthcare), and SSI (monthly payments to her bank account).
If we get married, it'll mean a massive cost for us, since very little of these benefits would carry over afterwards. I legally cannot be her caretaker if we're married, and my main job would put us in too high of a tax bracket for the rest of her benefits to go untouched.
It's a shockingly bad system.
I live in the US and had no idea this is how it worked. I shouldn’t be surprised-this place is a hellhole if you’re poor. Why would being disabled be any different?
Maybe some awareness is needed here. It might do nothing - but it for sure ain’t changing if people don’t know this goes on.
Oh man, it's complicated, John Oliver had a whole bit on it.
Basically if you're disabled and on federal assistance, you have to stay below a certain income level.
If you get married, that double income puts you over the limit and you lose your assistance. It's deeply fucked up.
24 minutes, NSFW:
Marriage bit is around the 20 minute mark, but really, everyone should watch the whole thing.
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It's US here, but even more specifically, an 'adult disabled since childhood' can not get married to anyone but another 'adult disabled since childhood' or all the benefits are removed. Entirely.
Which sucks cause guess what classification my husband with cerebral palsy has?? Oh well, eternal fiance for me I guess. Fiancee? One of them.
Fiancé
Not just the US, but yeah, definitely here.
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My husband is disabled and receives SSDI (US). I did the math when he was awarded disability and he would be getting a lot more if we weren't married. We had a very long discussion and long story short marriage was more important to us than money. Since we're married the money is counted as income and I am the one who pays taxes on it. He qualified for Medicare too after the first five years on SSDI and that comes out of his benefits as well. I still buy insurance for him through my employer which I pay out the ass for but it's worth it with his medical conditions and should I lose my job he still has his Medicare to fall back on. I dare say I pay almost as much for his medical needs as we get from the disability payments. We aren't by any means rich but we have the basics and that's enough. My heart breaks for him and others in the same or worse situations. His own family will say that they love him with one breath and then disparage those "freeloaders" with the other. Since the beginning of the year we've been religiously watching our bank account in horror wondering when the checks will just stop coming. It took years of hard work and tough decisions to get us both to a place of stability and productivity that now could disappear in an instant because we are the collateral damage in a rich folk's pissing match. I hope they all rot in hell.
Wait disability is taxed in the US? What the actual fluff!
We get taxed more than people in other countries think we do and add on car dependency and the scam health insurance scheme…it’s pretty bad here; unless you are worth more than 10 million dollars then you get to be more of a scum bag here than in other countries.
I do understand how US taxes generally are, you're also the only country that charges citizens taxes on income earnt when resident overseas, I have a few US friends here. But taxing a government benefit is just ridiculous double-handling and makes it duplicitous to the general public when benefit increases are discussed...
Erithrea also taxes their citizens wherever they are.
Same energy as pointing out Liberia also uses Fahrenheit.
Kind of, but they're basically the only two in the world because no one else is insane enough to care, the US does it by bullying other countries but considering the good will of a lot of countries is starting to be impacted, I'm not sure it will last until 2028… I'm pretty sure Erithrea only has leverage by withholding important documents for the taxpayers who don't comply.
Yup, they do.
And it's doubly stupid because they have to file the taxes for the disability benefits they get as well, even though the government could just deduct it automatically.
Taxing disabilities but not billionaires.
Of course. The disabled produce no value while the billionaires graciously let us work for them.
(satire)
not satire,
that's how the system works.
that's the consequence of not owning the means of production
Satire in so far as my parody of that sentiment doesn't reflect my own opinions
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I feel this. If my wife got disability we could remodel our place more properly for disability. We have gotten by but just barely and she would have so much less pain each day if we just had a bit more resources.
Bro you are clearly being lazy, how about she just stops being disabled /S
that jesse wells song gets me so much as the lyrics are like this. "if you just worked a little harder"
What's the artist's name? Would love to find more disability-centric art
Where I live the partner gets some of the benefits as well, like tax free cars, cheaper insurance and free parking
Hell yes, this is so important!
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