What Is Disability Tax?

Or: The Many Ways Living with a Disability Costs More

Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash

Image Description: An old-fashioned window is painted in white to read “Pay Your Tax Now Here!” with a background reflection of a 1940s style car and white building in the background.

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Although the phrase may be new, the concept of a disability tax is very old — about as old as the invention of disability. As Becca Lory Hector writes, disability tax is:

“…the term we use in the disability community to describe the additional effort, energy, finances, and time it takes us to regularly match what our peers and colleagues do on a daily basis.”

Tiffany Yu expands on the disability tax concept quite elegantly, describing how much more money it cost her to purchase a one-handed cutting board that was accessible for her compared to a typical one. She also highlights the high rate of employment discrimination experienced by disabled people, which severely limits their earning potential. On top of that, when a disabled person cannot work the benefits they receive are extremely low and require living in poverty despite higher medical and self-care expenses.

To put it bluntly, the financial taxes on living with a disability are everywhere and can be rather extreme.

Accessibility Taxes

Yu and another blog from United Cerebral Palsy also highlight some additional financial costs not usually considered, that of accessible inclusion:

“Thanks to incomplete social integration, we are economic prisoners of necessity. A lack of consumer choice can often funnel us towards more expensive choices. Our nondisabled counterparts, meanwhile, can opt for thriftier alternatives. We can’t sit in the nosebleeds in a stadium or theater, and designated seats for people with disabilities often don’t come cheap. When I travel, I often cannot stay with friends or at an Airbnb because of a lack of accessible options. I end up shelling out for a hotel, where I have one or two options that are ADA-compliant—and pricey. De facto segregation can be very costly, indeed.”

These costs are also true for transportation and adequately accessible housing. Requiring accessibility means needing to find newer built, remodeled, or custom housing options at a premium cost.

A transportation example: to be adequately comfortable on a flight, I have to purchase pricier seats. To find reliable on-demand transportation I frequently find I have to pay more to be sure that someone will show up. Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter also elaborates on extra costs for transportation because she and her partner are both blind and cannot drive, which means paying extra for ride share to locations that are not accessible by public transit.

Time Taxes

Wasted time is another part of the disability tax that often goes unobserved. Karthik Balasubramanian (friend and fellow DC MAAC member) and Kai Hall write in deep detail with data analysis how the inefficient public transportation system doubles the time it takes for riders to travel in DC compared to drivers. Disabled people are more likely to experience this time tax as they are more frequently nondrivers.

“The results are damning. Our analysis shows that transit trips in the District take on average over 2.5 times longer than driving the same route. In real terms, that’s an average transportation time tax of over 31 minutes per trip. The most extreme cases show transit trips taking up to eight times longer than driving the equivalent route, with the 90th percentile multiple at 3.8×.”

Taken further, disability taxes can be thought of as a reflection on how society considers the value of disabled people. As Balasubramanian and Hall write:

“Our transportation system isn’t just unfair—it’s a brutal judgment on human worth. In DC, if you’re too young, too old, too poor, too disabled, or don’t want to drive, you’re sentenced to a life worth only 40 percent of a driver’s. Said another way, a driver’s life is worth 2.5 times the lives of non-drivers… The time tax isn’t just about minutes; it’s about dignity. It strips away freedom and opportunity from those already facing society’s steepest barriers, while we conveniently ignore the moral crime happening in plain sight: systematically valuing some lives less than others based solely on whether they can drive.”

While they are referring to transportation time, this can be expanded to other areas of the time tax. What does it say about people with disabilities kept waiting for exorbitant lengths at medical appointments? What is the signaling happening when equal accommodation for tickets at an entertainment venue cost double?

In my mind, I hear: “we don’t value you, your time, nor your money.” I hear: “we cannot be bothered to accommodate people with disabilities.”

Hector argues the disability tax can be fought and mitigated by accessibility and asking disabled people what accommodations they need, then making them. This approach would go a long way, but doesn’t completely solve the fundamental tax on time, energy, and finances disabled people continue to experience. For that, we a better understanding of these taxes and why they happen in the first place.

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