Phoebe Ball, J.D.

The world of finance, savings, and asset development is unfamiliar to many Americans with disabilities who live on fixed incomes and depend on government benefits to provide housing, food, and health care. To help address the extreme poverty, lack of access to capital and asset building opportunities for people with disabilities, the University of Iowa's Law, Health Policy & Disability Center (LHPDC) formed the Asset Accumulation and Tax Policy Project. Through research and training activities, Peter Blanck, Principal Investigator, Johnette Hartnett, Co-Principal Investigator, and Michael Morris, Project Director are advancing the discussion of asset accumulation by people with disabilities, and policy necessary to promote financial independence of people with disabilities.

To lenders and financial institutions, individuals with disabilities have not been a target audience to market products and services. The FDIC recently sponsored at their headquarters in Washington, D.C. an invitation-only forum for selected financial institutions to introduce the opportunities available to respond to the financial service needs of Americans with disabilities. The forum was cosponsored by the National Disability Institute/National Cooperative Bank, and the Law, Health Policy and Disability Center (LHPDC) at the University of Iowa.

The event provided an opportunity to introduce and improve understanding about the increasing numbers of people with disabilities in the United States under and over age 65. Presenters from the IRS described pilot efforts to reach low-income wage earners with disabilities nationwide and assist them with filing for the Earned Income Tax Credit. Johnette Hartnett and Michael Morris of the NDI and LHPDC described emerging trends in this new market segment and the diversity of interests and needs of individuals with disabilities and their families.

To further make the business case for forum participants, a three-person panel shared our personal experiences with disability and their expectation concerning financial services.

At the forum, I discussed my move from poverty and the important role that financial education, planning and a relationship with a local bank played in helping me to become one of a select group (less than 1% ever leave the benefit roles) to achieve financial independence after living on a combination of SSI and SSDI.

Charlie Hammerman, formerly of Merrill Lynch and currently the managing director of the Burton Blatt Institute (BBI) at Syracuse University's New York City office, spoke as the parent of a teenager with significant disabilities, and as someone who has spent his career in the financial world.

Steve Mendelsohn, LHPDC, who has done important study of disability and the tax code, spoke about the importance of financial literacy and empowerment to the disability community.

By reaching out from the disability perspective to mainstream financial institutions, the event allowed the financial community to understand how they may contribute to and benefit from investment in the disability community.

To further the objectives of the AATP project, LHPDC recently authored a number of articles to be published in the winter issue of Disability Studies Quarterly, the journal of the Society for Disability Studies. The articles address the economic reality that an unacceptably high proportion of persons with disabilities in the U.S. live in poverty. Disability civil rights require economic empowerment, and this requires analysis of asset development, wealth creation, and tax policy. My LHPDC colleagues and I examine asset limits on people with disabilities and their effects. They argue that true equality and full community participation for Americans with disabilities cannot be attained without an understanding of the power of assets and wealth creation.¹ Mendelsohn reviews U.S. tax policy and its impact on people with disabilities. He argues that use of asset-development strategies must be coupled with efforts to support people with disabilities in employment, and the creation of more sophisticated employer tax incentives.² Schmeling and colleagues then empirically examine the use of tax credits and asset accumulation strategies. They find that people with disabilities do not effectively use tax benefits and financial strategies.³

The asset development work of the LHPDC has been undertaken as part of the Asset Accumulation and Tax Policy Project funded by NIDRR grant #H133A031732. The Asset Accumulation and Tax Policy Project (AATPP) is a partnership of The Law, Health Policy, and Disability Center at the University of Iowa College of Law, in collaboration with Southern New Hampshire University School of Community Economic Development, the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions, the World Institute on Disability, and the National Disability Institute/NCB Development Corporation.

1 Ball, P., Morris, M., Hartnett, J. & Blanck P. (2005). Breaking the Cycle of Poverty: Asset Accumulation By People with Disabilities. Disability Studies Quarterly.

2 Mendelsohn, S. (2005). Role of the Tax Code in Asset Development for People with Disabilities. Disability Studies Quarterly.

3 Schmeling, J., Schartz, H. A., Morris M. & Blanck, P. (2005). Tax Credits and Asset Accumulation: Findings from the 2004 N.O.D./Harris Survey of Americans with Disabilities. Disability Studies Quarterly.