Financial Well Being for Individuals with Disabilities During the Pandemic and Beyond

People with disabilities are experiencing new levels of financial stress and unemployment due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Large numbers of people are making employment-related decisions based on new financial situations. To provide job seekers with disabilities and staff in the workforce system with critical financial literacy tools, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) and Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) collaborated, along with resource contributions from other federal partners, to develop an online financial toolkit to use throughout the stages in the work life cycle: 1) Preparing for a job, 2) Starting a job, 3) Maintaining a job, 4) Changing or Losing a job, and 5) Retiring.

Webinar attendees were given answers to frequently asked questions from the field – questions many of your job seekers may ask or questions you may have yourself. Representatives from the U.S. Department of Labor opened the webinar and provided closing thoughts: U.S. Secretary of Labor Martin Walsh kicked off the session to mark the 31st anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and was followed by Ali Khawar, Acting Assistant Secretary of EBSA. Jennifer Sheehy, Deputy Assistant Secretary of ODEP, provided closing remarks. Nancy Boutot, Manager of Financial Empowerment at National Disability Institute, Andy Arias, Policy Advisor at ODEP, and Edward Mitchell, ABLE National Resource Center BIPOC Ambassador, introduced attendees to the new online Financial Toolkit through an engaging dialogue pulling from both professional and personal lived experience.