TL;DR: My brother is disabled, and there is a law being reviewed in the US that would massively improve his life. Please write to Congress (links below). Yes, it works.
Hey guys, I know I’m not around much anymore, and new people probably don’t even know who I am (how dare they), but there’s a law being considered in the US that would dramatically improve my older brother’s life. I know we don’t really do solicitation and calls for action on SB, but when I was thinking of communities to reach out to on this, I thought of your guys.
I think this law is already fairly popular, but I’m trying to get as many people as I can to contact their representatives to make sure this isn’t something that’s just pushed aside or killed by abstentions.
Below, I’m just going to reuse my FB post, because I’ve been contacting politicians and friends about his for hours and I’m tired. To be clear, I’m not part of some larger group or something. I believe there are some groups organizing petitions around this, so there likely are petitions you can join. But I don’t really know their efficacy.
Literally, this law is something that worries my brother and me every day, so hearing that it could be rectified–for us it’s like hearing that Medicare for All might get passed soon. Anyway, here’re the deets:
Guys, I need your help with something.
A member of my family has severe schizophrenia and can’t work regularly. He likes to work. He wants to work. But some days it could lead to severe panic attacks that would leave him in the hospital. He relies on disability checks to get by, but currently in the US, if you have more than $2,000 in assets, they cut off your disability. Last Christmas, they tried to cut him off, because he owns a car (even though the law explicitly excludes cars and houses). The effect is that you end up terrified of getting an official job, because you might be trading a guaranteed government check for a job that could be gone any day. So you work odd jobs and keep the money in cash, or you just…give up.
Until now. Maybe. It’s up to you. (Please help.) In the Senate and Congress they’ll soon be voting on the SSI Savings Penalty Elimination Act, which would raise the limit to $10,000 and increase it with inflation from then on. This would be massive. It would allow my family member to work a regular job, to save money, maybe to live independently.
Here’s how you can help: write to your state Senators and district Congressmen, using these websites:
https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm
https://ziplook.house.gov/htbin/findrep_house
Just this sentence is enought: “PLEASE vote YES for the SSI Savings Penalty Elimination Act, so the disabled can live with dignity.”
You might think Senators and Congresspeople don’t read this stuff. They do. They 100% do. Anyone who has worked in one of these offices will tell you that one of the basic jobs is to take phone calls and e-mails, tally how many are on a certain topic and whether they’re yes or no on the topic, then send it to the Senator/Congressman. Writing/calling is the MAIN way these people hear from their constituents. It’s the pulse of how they interpret public sentiment. This e-mail is more powerful than any vote for president you’ve ever cast.
[Note for SB: yes, you should do this for a ceasefire in Palestine as well, but do that in a separate message.]
So, thanks for reading this far, and seriously: please help.