What is the Real Economic Impact Tour?

Since 1990, in the post-Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) era, federal policy has encouraged people with disabilities to become more independent, reduce reliance on government, manage public resources through individual budgets to direct and control support needs, and advance community participation. 

    How can this be accomplished?  A child born today in the United States with a significant disability still has little chance of gaining economic self-sufficiency despite advances in health care, assistive technology, education, independent living and employment, without access to mainstream financial services and supports.  A person born prior to ADA with cognitive/developmental disabilities (DD) has even less chance of self-sufficiency without one-on-one intervention and advocacy as demonstrated in the article below by my son, Kurt.  Sometimes it is self-advocacy, sometimes family-advocacy and sometimes agency-advocacy, but however it is achieved, education and navigation through the system are crucial. 

    Poverty continues to play a major role in the lives of people with disabilities.  Thirty-eight percent of working-age adults with disabilities live in households with annual incomes of under $15,000. A 2004 national study found that 83 percent of people with disabilities never claimed available tax credits and/or deductions related to work, and that 54 percent of people with disabilities had no savings accounts, 69 percent had no checking accounts, and 75 percent did not have loans with financial institutions.  Only 10 percent of people with developmental disabilities own homes and less than 50 percent of persons with disabilities compared to 71 percent of those without disabilities own their own home.  Children with disabilities living in poverty will move into healthy financial futures only if asset-building strategies are made available. 

    In December 2001, the General Accounting Office (GAO) published a research paper citing data from the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey for 1999 approximating the number of households eligible for EITC. Using Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data they estimated the number of eligible taxpayers who claimed this credit. The report indicated that of the individuals without a qualifying child who earned less than $10,200 (the maximum earned income for 1999 – now indexed to $12,590); only 44.7% ±3.9% actually claimed the credit.

    From the GAO report I drew the conclusion that one group of people, who may not have qualifying children but may earn less than $10,200, are people with disabilities who are drawing some Social Security Disability Income (SSDI) and/or Supplemental Security Income (SSI). They may be individuals who earn money in workshops where pay is based on piecework rather than hours worked. They may be individuals whose disability allows them only sporadic earnings to supplement their SSDI and SSI.  From that point on I became a vocal advocate for my son and all Americans in similar circumstances.  Last October I was honored by National Disability Institute with the first annual Outstanding Accomplishment Award for Improving the Economic Lives of Americans with Disabilities. 

    If people with disabilities are to become more independent, reduce reliance on government, manage individual budgets to direct and control support needs, they are going to have to have access to financial education.  Many people assume that because a child is born with a disability their potential is very limited.  The ideal place for this education to take place is before they transition from school to the workplace.  People with disabilities who are just entering the labor force often have little experience with filing taxes or managing a budget, and are unaware of existing tax credits and provisions that may positively impact their financial status.  As with so many other aspects of life, it is never too late to start on the road to enter the financial mainstream as evidenced by Kurt and others across the country who are just beginning the journey.  But the missing link is a coordinated national effort that connects people with disabilities to existing financial services and support strategies.  Research shows that asset ownership is associated with good health and quality of life.  Homeownership, education beyond high school, savings and investments all lead to good jobs and increased longevity. 

    The Real Economic Impact Tour is a public-private collaboration, a high-velocity initiative, or “tour,” designed to produce sustainable local infrastructures to promote financial independence for Americans with disabilities and their families.

The 2008 Real Economic Impact Tour is assisting 62 cities in the:

• Development of a disability workgroup within existing free tax coalition;

• Volunteer tax preparation assistance;

• Financial education classes;

• Training about access and use of public benefits;

• Special events to connect to financial institutions;
• Credit, debt, and homeownership counseling;
• Training about federal work incentives to promote self-sufficiency; and
• Training and technical assistance leveraging existing community resources.

    The 2008 Real Economic Impact Tour builds on successful accomplishments over the past three years that assisted more than 36,000 individuals with disabilities access the Earned Income Tax Credit as a gateway to other asset-building activities.  In 2006, The Tour received funding from the Ford Foundation and the National Cooperative Bank (now NCB), for the National Disability Institute (NDI) in collaboration with IRS Wage & Investment Research to study the needs of taxpayers with disabilities in four cities. In 2007, the Tour through support of Bank of America provided outreach and technical assistance to community coalitions in 54 cities and returned over $32 million. 

    The goal of the 2008 Real Economic Impact Tour is to reach out to more than 1.5 million individuals with disabilities and help over 50,000 taxpayers and their families receive free tax filing and other asset building services. Private support for the 2008 Tour is provided by the Bank of America, AT&T and Darden Restaurants Foundation combined with in-kind federal agency support from the IRS, FDIC, the Social Security Administration, the U.S. Department of Labor, Mayors’ Offices and more than 350 community-based organizations. The National Disability Institute expects to produce 50,000 new filers with disabilities and pump more than $40 million dollars back into local economies.  On January 8th and 9th representatives of Mayors Offices, United Ways and local service agencies from 14 cities met in Baltimore with officials from federal agencies and National Disability Organizations at the 2nd Annual Mayor’s Leadership Academy.  Information about “best practices” was presented by cities that have been part of the Tour for several years.  Officials from the national partner organizations shared information about how their local affiliates can be involved in the Tour.  At the end of the Academy the energy and enthusiasm for moving forward with this initiative was evident in all of the participants.

    The Real Economic Impact Tour is working to change the thinking and behavior of working-age adults with disabilities that the American Dream leaves no one behind when it comes to asset building and that there is no better time to begin the journey than now.

    I have now retired from IRS and plan to spend the rest of my life helping to spread the Real Economic Impact Tour across America.

More Information
www.reitour.org
Judy Stengel, REI Tour Resource Manager
jstengel@ndi-inc.org