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Woman in a wheelchair saying: “THERE IS NO MARRIAGE EQUALITY UNTIL PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES CAN MARRY WITHOUT LOSING BENEFITS”
this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2025
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Chronic Illness
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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.
I'm in Australia and get US$21.1k. Completely untaxed, and I can work up to ~15 hours before it affects my payment.
Yeah, I understood that (tho even that in case of divorce the disabled person would get benefits back which would empower them to seek divorce from a toxic relationship). Still inequity tho.
I was unaware of such radical transfer cuts in Europe, but I guess Italy is stagnant for decades now & it shows on social structures.
Just checked, for civil invalidity the income threshold is 17k€ net, but no income tax applies - which is disgustingly low, especially in northern Italy - but I think that might be "just" to qualify for an annuity, it doesnt cancel other disability-specific benefits, such as wheelchairs or co-financing one if the person wants a better model ... not that that is much, but medicine/medical accessories/care is ofc included which is at least better than overseas.
I'm not sure but there might be some other forms of help disabled persons can take advantage of (I'm guessing, but eg like untaxed artisan work or companies getting perpetually reimbursed if they hire disabled employees).
I don't know much about Greece but not having a big social safety net is def surprising for a country with a lot of social transfers.
I guess EU should do better on the anti-wealth concentration front, it's gotten dystopian.
My wife gets about $20,000/year in disability payments (US).
I have no idea how it's calculated. I'm assuming it would be much more if she wasn't married to me.
If it's ssdi I know it's calculated by the average yearly income prior to disability. I made ~$28k/year before applying for ssdi 10 years ago, and I get about half that from ssdi now (after col raises)
Yeah. My wife had her own optometry practice. Unfortunately her income was not what most of her patients and employees thought it was. In her last full year of working full time her total salary for the year was $6000.