ABLE accounts: allowing some US people with disabilities have more savings when on means-tested payments

https://www.ablenrc.org/what-is-able/what-are-able-acounts/

Would be great if other countries brought this in too.

 

Yes, and the US should make it easier for people on disability to find out about ABLE accounts. I was worried about keeping my savings below $2000 for a long time. Now I've got this account and can save up to something like $250,000. (Varies by state and disability program from $100,000 to around $500,000.)

Note the age requirement:

 

I understand the reasons for means-testing, but the way so many systems are set up drives people into poverty before they can get help and then keeps them there. A Social Care is another big problem in the UK. For something which is supposed to help provide security, for it to effectively remove it from people is madness.

This looks like an interesting system and it would be good to see changes elsewhere. Sadly I can’t see it happening because of the way certain people see and portray it.

 

Yup. I get a payment that, for instance, covers the cost of my powered wheelchairs and vehicles.

Even though I'm using the money for its intended purpose, the most I can save towards the cost is £6000. After that, amounts are deducted from my weekly income in lieu of interest on the savings. (Fictional interest, obviously; I'm stuck here in the real world, where the annual return on small deposits won't buy a chocolate bar.)

Neither vehicle can be bought new, or adapted to a person's needs, for £6000. The savings ceiling hasn't been changed for so long that inflation's halved its purchasing power.

So I'm trapped into giving away the whole allowance for a vehicle I can never own, of a specification higher than I need. There's nothing left for a replacement wheelchair, so I'd have to pursue additional social funding for that.

I could easily make it cover both by saving the money and waiting till the set of adaptations I need comes up on the secondhand market. But that would mean acknowledging I'm capable of making useful decisions.