Continuing Views of the Financial Implications of Employment for Persons with Disabilities

Abstract

Continuing Views of the Implications of Employment for Persons with We appreciate Mr. Stephen F. Knapp's reactions to our 1987 article, Financial Implications of Half-and Full-Time Employment for Persons with Disabilities (Exceptional Children, 54, 272-276). Differences in his analysis and ours are due, in part, to information that became available after the final submission of the paper. Page 276 of the article indicates that the manuscript was received by Exceptional Children in February 1986 and accepted in May 1986. From the time of acceptance to the time of publication two revisions were made to ensure the information was current. Our latest revision, conducted in early May, was received in the editorial office of Exceptional Children in June 1987. Despite our frequent conversations with staff members in the Social Security Administration Office, we had no way of knowing that 1619(b) Amendments to the Social Security Act (P.L. 99-643) would be enacted in July of 1987. Mr. Knapp can be assured that our intention was to describe the financial implications of employment for individuals with handicaps. Ignoring these data would not have assisted us in meeting this objective. The federal income tax rate reported in our article was based on a projection provided by a staff member of the Internal Revenue Service in May 1986. At the time of our final update, the 1987 tax tables were not available. Current tax rates, now available, indicate that all projections were within $75.00. Note that Mr. Knapp failed to consider the standard deduction and exemption when arriving at his tax rates. Consequently, his tax figures are incorrectly based on gross earnings rather than taxable income. We would like to expand on the major contribution made by Mr. Knapp and react to his conclusions. First, Mr. Knapp's basic information regarding 1619(b) is accurate. Unfortunately, our conversations with nine Social Security Administration and Medicaid offices in four different states and in Washington, D.C., revealed substantial differences in interpretation. In general, loss of Medicaid is more likely to occur through a change in disability status than through the earnings increase discussed by Mr. Knapp. We were not able to extract objective criteria for disability status but have been involved in several cases in which employability was used as the principal criterion. Our sources indicated that individuals making over $300.00 a month are routinely investigated for potential disability cessation. Different states are more or less lenient in determining whether employment earnings signals the loss of disability status. We were informed that litigation resulting from disability cessation terminations has increased substantially across the country. This may make states less likely to pursue cessation determinations. We were surprised by Mr. Knapp's suggestion that we are critical of the supported employment movement, especially in light of our frequent contributions to the supported employment literature. Most directly, we have assisted in the development and operation of a supported employment project now in its 4th year of operation (Schloss, P. J., McEwen, D., Lang, E., & Schwab, J. (1986). PROGRESS: A model program for promoting school to work transition. …