Politicians love talking ‘affordability’ — unless you’re disabled

September marks Deaf Awareness Month — and the final two-month sprint toward the 2026 midterm elections. Politicians should connect the two. In most campaigns, they could not be further apart.Affordability is now the magic ticket in American politics. Candidates promise cheaper housing, healthcare, groceries, childcare, and energy. Listen long enough, however, and one group is still largely missing: deaf and disabled people.That is not niche politics. It is basic math and morality. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 1 in 4 adults has a disability. Any economic agenda that overlooks more than a quarter of the adult population is incomplete from the start. For people with disabilities, affordability extends beyond the supermarket or gas station. It can include transportation, specialist care, personal assistance, technology, and accessible housing. Deaf and hard-of-hearing people can pay more simply to receive information and services that others access routinely.National Disability Institute research estimated that households containing an adult with a work disability need about 29% more income to maintain the same standard of living. Elizabeth Jennings, then the institute’s acting executive director, said the research confirmed that “living with a disability incurs extra costs.”Those costs often arrive with fewer opportunities to earn. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in 2025, the unemployment rate among people with disabilities was 8.3%, compared with 4.1% among people without disabilities.Then government turns the squeeze into a trap.Supplemental Security Income supports elderly, blind, and disabled people with very limited income and assets. In 2026, the maximum federal payment is $994 per month for an eligible individual but only $1,491 for an eligible couple.Two SSI-eligible people could receive as much as $1,988 combined as individuals. If they marry and qualify as a couple, that maximum falls by $497 per month. Spousal-income rules can reduce assistance further.SSI generally permits only $2,000 in countable resources for an individual and $3,000 for a couple. Even a modest emergency fund can threaten essential support. It also disregards only $20 of most monthly income and $65 of earnings before reducing benefits.“Decades of inflation and inaction have turned a crucial safety net program into a tightrope,” said Darcy Milburn, then the Arc’s director of Social Security and healthcare policy.Kathleen Romig, then the director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, was blunter: “We say you can’t save, you can’t marry, you can’t work.”Congress does not need another commission to understand the problem. It could set the maximum couple benefit at twice the individual rate, raise resource limits to $10,000 for an individual and $20,000 for a couple, and update the earned-income exclusion. Each figure should then rise with inflation.Affordability also includes the price of enforcing rights that already exist.Disabled individuals are disproportionately facing legal issues. And Marc Fishman, a disabled father of four and disability advocate in New York, knows that cost firsthand. In federal litigation against the city of New Rochelle and other defendants, Fishman has alleged that officials denied him disability accommodations protected by federal law. The dispute has produced years of district and appellate proceedings, “like so many fellow advocates who pay more to have their rights protected,” Fishman said.That legal experience exposes another expense missing from campaign speeches. Legal assistance, filing fees, documentation, transportation, and time away from work can turn the denial of an accommodation into a separate financial crisis. A right on paper offers little protection when enforcing it requires years in court.Granted, disabled voters are not a political monolith. They do not vote solely on disability policy. However, the communities’ diversity is precisely the point: Housing, employment, transportation, healthcare, and household costs are disability issues because disabled people experience the same economy, frequently with additional expenses and fewer safeguards.$100 OIL WILL WRECK THE MIDTERM ELECTIONS: TRUMP CAN’T WAIT FOR NOVEMBER TO CUT A DEALAccounting for deaf and disabled people is smart politics, sound economic policy, and the morally right thing to do.If politicians cannot explain how their affordability agendas help more than one-quarter of adults, they should stop pretending those agendas are designed for everyone.James Christopher is a Democratic political strategist and the founder and managing director of James Christopher Communications.