By Neil Romano and Sara Weir Rogers

For far too long, our government has failed to believe in the economic potential of people with disabilities. The lack of belief in Americans with disabilities is more than symbolic — it’s structural. It’s visible in the tangled web of contradictory programs, outdated regulations, and policies that punish ambition and trap millions of disabled Americans in a cycle of poverty and dependence. Our government has been doing the same thing for more than 100 years — and expecting different results.

This is a moment of extraordinary opportunity. The Trump Administration and Congress have a rare chance to rethink a system that is not only inefficient but also unjust.

People with disabilities, families, and caregivers are afraid, and rightfully so. Yet change — if done right — could empower millions of people with disabilities and add billions to our national economy and workforce.

The Problem Isn’t Disability. It’s Disbelief.

People with disabilities are not broken. Our systems are. The government doesn’t invest in their future, not because the need isn’t clear, but because it doesn’t believe in its potential. This disbelief has led to a piecemeal approach of disconnected federal and state disability programs, coupled with a broken Medicaid system, which all work against each other. The result? Billions spent with little to show for it in long-term outcomes related to the healthcare, employment, and independence of people with disabilities.

Too often, our federal and state programs pay people without disabilities, through State Medicaid dollars, to "train" people with disabilities to work, only to penalize them if they try. Our federal tax dollars, in the form of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), essentially pay people not to work and live a lifetime of poverty, which in turn requires a lifetime of additional state and federal payments that could have potentially been avoided. Then federal bureaucrats monitor them closely… just to keep people with disabilities from working too much. If a young woman with Down syndrome, proud to work at her local coffee shop, picks up an extra shift and earns a few extra dollars per month, she is now in a position where she faces a reduction in his SSI benefits. If any private company followed this model, it would be bankrupt. Yet our government has allowed this to continue for over a century.

Waste, Fraud, and the Real Victims

While “waste, fraud, and abuse” has become a cliché, nowhere is it more destructive than in disability policy. The true victims are not faceless bureaucracies, but people with disabilities themselves, who are forced into lifetimes of poverty and lost potential. Worse yet, the programs intended to help them often do the opposite. From obsolete asset limits to benefit cliffs, we create perverse incentives that punish work and reward stagnation.

Should a person with a disability want to take advantage of their employer’s 401(k) or any retirement vehicle? They can’t — unless it's through an ABLE account. If they want to work one more hour a week? They must be careful — it might disqualify them from benefits they depend upon to survive.

“For a college graduate with cerebral palsy working part-time, increasing their hours can mean losing access to the personal care services, accessible transportation, or job coaching support that they depend on to stay employed. That’s not just bad policy, it’s inhumane. . .We must stop treating people with disabilities as tax takers and start recognizing them as the taxpayers, workers, and entrepreneurs that they want to be.”

The System is Broken. The Government Knows It.

For over 30 years, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has warned the public, the disability community, and Congress that our federal disability programs are uncoordinated, outdated, and ineffective. Individuals with disabilities and their families are often forced to navigate a maze of uncoordinated state systems — from Vocational Rehabilitation to Medicaid, Home and Community-Based Services, education agencies, and more. These offices rarely communicate, requiring families to fill out duplicative forms, repeat the same personal stories, and decipher conflicting information just to access basic supports. The result is frustration, delay, and too often, people falling through the cracks.

Reports, that we wholeheartedly support, continue to recommend the creation of a central and national disability office to evaluate outcomes, eliminate duplication, and communicate a unified message. But nothing changes. The dysfunction continues — not because we don’t know what to do, but because we haven’t had the will and courage to do it.

It’s Not Just a Moral Issue. It’s an Economic One.

Here’s the upside: investing in a better infrastructure and rewarding disability talent isn’t just the right thing to do — it’s smart economic policy. Accenture estimates that 93% of people with disabilities want to work. Yet only a fraction are employed. The current system leaves roughly $25 billion in economic activity on the table — and that’s if just 1% more people with disabilities join the workforce. Imagine what 10% or 20% increase could mean: hundreds of billions of dollars in GDP growth, new taxpayers, and stronger communities.

At a time when our country faces a growing labor gap — especially with reduced immigration — we are ignoring a ready, willing, and capable workforce sitting on the sidelines. Why? Because our system traps people with disabilities there.

Reform Isn’t About Cutting. It’s About Doing Better.

This isn’t a call to cut — it’s a call to restructure. We don’t need to spend more to do better. We need to do better with what we already spend. That means holding programs accountable, modernizing policies to reflect today’s economy, allowing disability benefits to be portable from state to state, and, most of all, trusting people with disabilities to thrive when given the chance.

Let them earn. Let them save. Let them rise. The federal government will be paying for supports and services either way — but we can choose whether that investment keeps people in poverty or lifts them out of it.

Let’s Stop Punishing Work — and Start Rewarding It

If someone with a disability works one day, or even one hour, too much – or earns one dollar too much – they risk losing everything. For a college graduate with cerebral palsy working part-time, increasing their hours can mean losing access to the personal care services, accessible transportation, or job coaching support that they depend on to stay employed. That’s not just bad policy, it’s inhumane. We must fix the benefit cliffs. We must expand private sector tools like ABLE accounts. We must stop treating people with disabilities as tax takers and start recognizing them as the taxpayers, workers, and entrepreneurs that they want to be.

The time for incremental change is over. The Trump Administration and Congress must lead a bold reorganization, not to eliminate support and vital infrastructure, but to make it work. To believe in people with disabilities is to build a system that empowers them.

Let’s stop doing what we’ve always done. Let’s start doing what works.

About the Authors

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