Recent polling by Able Americans found that nearly eight in ten voters have never heard of ABLE accounts, including the same percentage of voters with disabilities. Only 4 percent say they know enough about the accounts to explain how they work. Despite the historic expansion of eligibility in January 2026, first-quarter enrollment growth has remained modest. People cannot use a program they have never heard of. getty
The employment-population ratio for people with disabilities reached a record high of 22.7 percent in 2024, the highest level since the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking the data in 2008. That is worth celebrating. Across the country, employers are recognizing what the Disabled community has known all along: talent is everywhere. From corporate boardrooms to small businesses, Disabled people are contributing, innovating, and helping drive the economy forward.
Rising employment has not closed the wealth gap that sits underneath it. Research from the Financial Health Network, in partnership with the National Disability Institute and the Harkin Institute, found that working-age people with disabilities are only about a third as likely to be financially healthy as their peers without disabilities. Disabled workers earn less on average, face higher out-of-pocket healthcare and accommodation costs, and run into structural rules that make it harder to save.
The most visible of those rules is the Supplemental Security Income asset limit. SSI provides modest monthly benefits to roughly 7.4 million Americans who are elderly or have disabilities, with a maximum benefit of just under $1,000 a month in 2026. To stay eligible, an individual recipient cannot hold more than $2,000 in countable assets. For a married couple, the combined limit is $3,000. That cap has not changed since 1989. If it had simply tracked inflation, it would be well above $5,000 today.
The result is a savings ceiling that punishes work. A Disabled worker who takes on extra shifts and starts putting money aside can lose eligibility for SSI, and often Medicaid along with it, by going a few dollars over a threshold set during the first Bush administration. Researchers at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities have documented that the resource limit is the leading cause of erroneous payments in SSI, generating overpayment notices that beneficiaries struggle to repay from already meager benefits.
Advocates have been pushing on multiple fronts. The bipartisan SSI Savings Penalty Elimination Act, sponsored by Senators Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) and Representatives Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and Danny Davis (D-IL), would raise SSI asset limits to $10,000 for individuals and $20,000 for couples and index them to inflation. The broader SSI Restoration Act would go further, updating income disregards and benefit levels that have been frozen for decades. Both efforts have drawn endorsements from organizations including The Arc, the National Academy of Social Insurance, and corporate disability inclusion leads at Microsoft and JPMorganChase.
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ABLE accounts sit alongside those efforts as a separate workaround. When Congress created ABLE in 2014, it finally gave people with disabilities a way to save without jeopardizing eligibility for critical supports such as Medicaid, Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS), and SSI. Today, individuals can save and invest up to $100,000 through an ABLE account while maintaining SSI eligibility and preserving access to Medicaid and essential waivers regardless of account balance. The ABLE Age Adjustment Act, which took effect on January 1, 2026, expanded eligibility to millions more Americans whose disabilities began before age 46.
The newest proposal in the ABLE family is the bipartisan ABLE Employment Flexibility Act, introduced by Representatives Sharice Davids (D-KS) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA). According to its sponsors, the legislation would allow employers to make direct contributions to an employee’s ABLE account, similar to how employers contribute to traditional retirement plans for other workers. It would also modernize ABLE accounts so they can function more effectively as long-term savings and employment tools.
Advocates including Sara Hart Weir, a longtime disability policy leader who helped lead the campaign for the original ABLE Act, have called on Congress to pass it. The National Disability Institute, which operates the ABLE National Resource Center, has similarly framed expanded ABLE access as a core piece of building Disabled workers’ financial resilience.
Alongside this work, organizations focused on the poorest SSI recipients, argue that fixing the underlying $2,000 asset limit is also an urgent priority, since ABLE accounts only help those who have something to save in the first place. As disability advocate Patrice Jetter told WBUR’s Here & Now, raising one savings limit means little if surrounding programs still pull eligibility the moment a worker’s income or assets rise. On the basic diagnosis, though, that the current system penalizes Disabled workers for saving, there is broad bipartisan and cross-coalition agreement.
This is where employers have an important role to play, regardless of how Congress moves.
Awareness is part of the gap. Recent polling by Able Americans found that nearly eight in ten voters have never heard of ABLE accounts, including the same percentage of voters with disabilities. Only 4 percent say they know enough about the accounts to explain how they work. Despite the historic expansion of eligibility in January 2026, first-quarter enrollment growth has remained modest. People cannot use a program they have never heard of.
If the goal is to increase labor force participation, financial independence, and economic mobility for Disabled workers, employers should be introducing employees to ABLE accounts the same way they introduce health insurance and 401(k) enrollment from day one. The basics matter too: financial counseling that is actually disability-inclusive, accommodations that reduce the out-of-pocket cost of working, and HR teams that understand how SSI, Medicaid, and HCBS interact with a paycheck.
Some employers are already leading. Earlier this year, The Golden Scoop in Overland Park, Kansas, a nonprofit social enterprise employing adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, announced that it would begin making quarterly contributions to ABLE accounts for eligible employees in Kansas and Missouri. Rather than relying exclusively on traditional retirement structures that may not work for many workers receiving disability benefits, the organization chose a model designed around the realities facing employees with disabilities. Microsoft and JPMorganChase have publicly endorsed the SSI Savings Penalty Elimination Act as a workforce issue, citing the need to attract and retain talented Disabled workers without forcing them into impossible benefits math. These are the practices that should become the standard.
Picture every employer that proudly promotes disability inclusion also offering ABLE contributions, disability-inclusive financial counseling, and benefits navigation alongside other employee programs. Workers could build emergency savings. Families could plan for the future. Individuals could pursue employment opportunities without fear of losing essential supports.
The original ABLE Act changed millions of lives by proving that Disabled people deserve the same opportunity to save and plan for the future as everyone else. The next chapter will be written across several fronts at once: ABLE expansion, SSI reform, and the day-to-day practices of employers who actually want a workforce that reflects the full range of American talent. A system that penalizes Disabled workers for getting ahead does not have to stay that way.
This article was originally published on Forbes.com
