Curbing the growth of the federal deficit is a major priority for policymakers. One factor contributing to this growth is the shrinking pool of working-age people with disabilities who have jobs and pay taxes on their earnings. A growing number of these individuals are leaving the workforce and obtaining Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits and Medicare, adding to the skyrocketing costs of these federal programs. Although the support provided by these programs helps ease the financial strain on workers with disabilities, statistics show that the household incomes of these workers are falling behind those of workers without disabilities. This brief lays out a two-pronged approach for bending these curves--increasing the employment rate for people with disabilities, reducing their reliance on federal support, and increasing their household incomes--while preserving benefits for those who are unable to work.
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