Many things in our society work against the hopes of disabled people who want to be usefully employed. For them, life is often made up of long periods of living on social assistance, training projects which rarely result in work, and short term (usually government funded) work projects.

Social Assistance

Many people with disabilities live on social assistance. Most would rather not. Although it sounds impossible, some disabled people do not work because they can support themselves better by staying at home. Here is an example.

If a woman on social assistance has a serious medical problem—physical or mental—Social Services gives her a drug card. She can use this card to get free medication. But if she gets a job the card is taken away. Most jobs available to people with disabilities are unskilled, minimum wage jobs. If the woman works for minimum wage she cannot make enough money to cover all her living expenses plus medication. This is especially true if she needs expensive medication. Minimum wage will not provide enough money to cover medication, rent, food and other necessities. Unless she can find a job that pays well, she is better off on social assistance.

This is why the current system is said to have "disincentives"² for the disabled person. A job will keep a person busy, but other than that, working will not improve the quality of this person's life. Most people work because they want to contribute to society and grow as human beings. But they also have to put food on the table.

Attitudes

Even though there are many disincentives in our system, most disabled people want to work. When they try to find a job, however, they often meet employers with negative or uninformed attitudes. Sometimes employers assume the disabled person is too physically weak to do a job. If the person has a psychiatric condition, the employer might think that she is not smart enough. He might worry that the disabled person will get hurt or disrupt the work place. The employer may feel that other employees will not want to work with a disabled person.

Today there are programs in Newfoundland that enable disabled people to begin a job with the help of a support person. The support person works with the disabled employee for a year. Then the disabled person is on her own. The support person helps the disabled employee learn about the job and makes sure that the work gets done. But sometimes employers will not talk to or deal directly with the disabled employee. They will only deal with the support person. They have not learned that the disabled employee is a person. Because of these attitudes, the disabled person is often not given a fair chance.