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Work or get benefits? People with disabilities don't have to choose.
John Funk was relaxing next to an animatronic inflatable gift box from which a penguin periodically rose when the gutter cleaning guy showed up.
In mid-November in leafy McCandless, gutter guy’s arrival was not shocking. But John, 23, sat up in his lounge chair and glared hawk-like out the front window. The handyman was raising his ladder right in front of a 6-foot inflatable turkey.
“Watch the turkey,” John warned, though the contractor would not likely hear him through the window. “You break it, you buy it.”
Inflatables have been an ever-expanding part of John’s life since 2006, and they often dominate the yard of his family’s home. In the run-up to Halloween, he had 70 blow-up ghosts, pumpkins and other characters in the back yard alone.
“I like how they look. I love how they light up,” he explained. “I love the sound of the fans.”
His love drives John’s Funky Inflatables, which — for now — is more of a hobby than a business. He’ll rent, sell, repair or install pretty much anything involving a fan, fabric and whimsy. He plunges his modest proceeds back into his collection of some 400 inflatables, from a 3-foot wedding cake to a 20-foot Easter Bunny — nearly all bought used or on sale.
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| John Funk stands in front of Thanksgiving inflatables on Nov. 15, at his family’s home in McCandless. Funk has started John’s Funky Inflatables, renting repairing, and selling the whimsical fan-puffed yard decorations. (Photo by Kirk Lawrence/Pittsburgh’s Public Source) |
Going pro could supplement the paycheck he collects for working a few mornings a week at a household products store and the Social Security he receives as an autistic adult. He’s approaching one of those forks in the road common in the lives of people with disabilities at which they must balance the satisfaction of paid work and the relative security of government benefits.
Matt Bailey often hears well-meaning people tell their disabled loved ones, “You cannot work, you’ll lose your benefits.” Not true, said Bailey, a benefits supervisor and training specialist at Achieva Family Trust. “They don’t realize that you can work on these benefits.”
There are rules, though, regarding how much a person can earn and what they can own without losing government benefits. Without those benefits a person can be at the mercy of the market, where the law provides some protection, but no guarantees.
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