I’ve employed people in a similar position to yours at Instapainting.com. Willing to train and pay you while you train, and also dole part time work as you see fit for software engineering services. Please email me chris@instapainting.com
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Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income
71–80 of 219 posts
Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income
#72Naive question but can you do it through a friend? You get the contract on your friend/relative name, you do the work, you pay his/her taxes for that work and whatever overhead then the friend dispenses you enough money so you don’t lose disability?
Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'm not sure what the rules are, but perhaps you could set up a corporation that takes on the freelancing jobs and then pays you a salary of $1,200 a month? No, that'll lose you the benefits. https://www.ssa.gov/OP_Home/cfr20/404/404-1575.htm "We will evaluate your work activity based on the value of your services to the business regardless of whether you receive an immediate income for your services." SSI is delib…
Could a group of SSI freelancers set up a co-op to handle that month-to-month averaging?
I'm not sure on this one; I suspect one of the risks would be the SSA deeming the co-op itself to have a valuation and thus a participant's ownership in it count as an asset with enough value to break the $2k limit.
Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income
#74> I've been disabled since 2018, and my skills in software as such have largely become outdated. I always find this such a weird claim. Sure, lots has happened in the past 5 years, but there's still tons of software out there that's older than 5 years, most major programming languages are decades old, and anything new can be learned. If you want to be able to make money quickly, it's far more interesting to look at w…
I wouldn’t describe it as weird because people who struggle with a disability can lose their confidence over time in things unrelated to their disability, but I certainly agree with your point: if somebody could write code 5 years ago, they can do it today. Modern technology is just old technology with some different bells and whistles, the principles are all the same, and as has always been the case, most code that professionals are writing is very simple.
Technology is 90% confidence, and very little skill. The biggest challenge for the OP is convincing himself that he isn’t damaged goods who needs charity, he’s a competent developer with some restrictions on his availability so he’s available for part-time work.
Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
But if their business brings in $5k for one contract done one month and then has no work for 4 months to bring the average under $1,200, is that not above board with such a ruling? Test 3 in that legal document references that their income will be evaluated relative to what salary they might receive for such work, and I wouldn't think it would be reasonable for the business to be expected to pay more than the average…
It doesn't average. https://www.ssa.gov/OP_Home/cfr20/416/416-0420.htm > We generally use the amount of your countable income in the second month prior to the current month to determine how much your benefit amount will be for the current month. Earning $5k in a particular month would mean zero benefit in a subsequent month, and keeping that $5k sitting in their account to tide themselves over would put them over the…
I wonder if a 3rd party intermediary entity could be setup to collect the funds from the customer and pay out just the right amount spread over time.
Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income
#76I feel for you, I'm a bit younger then you and in a similar situation.
Been offered several jobs at tech startups for marketing positions that I had to turn down besides being offered the world and back. Can't risk losing the medicaid/medicare combo.
Have you looked into an efficiency apartment or talking to some old people who are landlords? They'll sometimes have places they'd rather stick a "low maintenance/guaranteed payment" tenant.
I regularly notice my landlord just "Forgetting" to update the cost per month on my rent portal but my lease stating a different amount.
One thing you can do is work for people in the crypto world, building Rust/Solidity games for others can be profitable AND most importantly its paid out in crypto.
Just don't try withdrawing said crypto in your name cough. -- Beyond working in the crypto world/getting paid in crypto I can't see a way out of this hellish hole for either of us.
Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income
#77> I've been disabled since 2018, and my skills in software as such have largely become outdated. I always find this such a weird claim. Sure, lots has happened in the past 5 years, but there's still tons of software out there that's older than 5 years, most major programming languages are decades old, and anything new can be learned. If you want to be able to make money quickly, it's far more interesting to look at w…
I wouldn’t describe it as weird because people who struggle with a disability can lose their confidence over time in things unrelated to their disability, but I certainly agree with your point: if somebody could write code 5 years ago, they can do it today. Modern technology is just old technology with some different bells and whistles, the principles are all the same, and as has always been the case, most code that…
I once knew a guy who was severely spastic, bound to a motorised wheelchair, could barely move or talk, but inside his head he was really smart and good with computers. Despite his complete disability, he was able to land a programming job with a company willing to accommodate for his disability, and he did very good work there.
Then the department where he worked was disbanded and everybody was laid off. All his coworkers got unemployment benefits, but he couldn't, because he was disabled. So he had to get disability instead. So he applied, and was told that this wasn't a new disability, so he had to apply for something for inborn disabilities, which was a slightly different agency. So he did, and was told that that was only for people who have never been able to work, and since he had had a job, it didn't apply to him.
Personally I think everybody who manages to work and make money despite their disability, should just be able to keep everything without losing their disability pay. We should be rewarding them, but instead we're punishing them.
Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income
#78You don't say what your disability is (or how it impacts your ability to work), so it's hard to be specific. But my general advice would be just to talk to more companies. Not every company will be open to this, but some will and you just need to find those companies. Get in contact with companies that are hiring for roles that require the kind of skills you have even if the working arrangements they're advertising a…
This. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people with disabilities who fall through the cracks because they’re able to work, just not to the artificial availability (and suffering) standard required by the modern labor market. There’s a difference between being able to do useful work and being able to survive the nightmare of a modern-day corporate job where the work demands themselves are low but the emotional labor i…
It really is. I’m able to work with ADA accommodations, but finding a job I can manage is difficult.
It takes me 3~6 months for me to find a job each time I’m out of work.
Finding a specialist to manage the medical side of my disability is similar.
Through fortunate circumstances (and inheritance), I have successful career and enough energy left over to have some kind of life.
If I lived in Europe, the amount of sick and vacation time would allow me to actually heal between episodes. I live in the US, so I’m in a constant state of near burn-out.
Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income
#79Maybe some of the open source bounty services listed on the FOSSjobs wiki?
https://fossjobs.net/ https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources
Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income
#80Have you considered technical writing? I've talked to a number of folks who are in a similar position, and writing (as opposed to generalist development) has a number of advantages: - It rewards experience though, except for niche-specific writing, does not require understanding of specific frameworks or programming languages - It is often 'important-but-not-urgent' work, so intermittent availability is less of a dea…
On that note, LWN are always looking for article authors: