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Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income

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141–150 of 219 posts

Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income

#141
outco is almost always hiring for tech coaches. Lots of bootcamps are always hiring for coaches. It really doesnt mater what your background is, you will probably know more than the typical person coming through the progress. These are typically 1099 or part time W-2 positions which allow you to pick your hours.

Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really know. I can say with confidence that I cannot be consistent for months at a time. I've been in and out of the hospital every 6 months since 2018.

That is so stressful. A close relative has a similar situation. It is cyclical and is a condition that for some people does improve long term, so when she is on the upswing there is always the thought/hope that it might continue to improve. Then after a few months it goes the other way. Absolutely crushing. At this point, she has something akin to PTSD from battling through these cycles over the years. Hope you can f…

I'm curious what your relative is going through because mine seems cyclical as well.

Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income

#143
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It strikes me as unfair that somebody who is "lawyered up" can find loopholes to protect their income whereas for many disabled people the process of applying for disability is like going to the moon or becoming a Navy Seal. This has been an inherent flaw in our legal system since the inception of our country. We do not have a right to equal representation. The right to have representation at all is barely even a t…

We do not have a right to equal representation. I'm not sure that's the case here. It's a matter of knowledge transfer. Lawyers know things. People with money can afford to get knowledge from lawyers. People without money cannot afford to get knowledge from lawyers. It's not a problem with the "system" that mathematicians know more about math than the general public, and that people who have the money can hire a math…

This is not what I think the comment was about. Of course, with the increasing complexity of society the complexity of its rules can increase as well. The idea that equal representation through equal knowledge/access to knowledge is the solution is not realistic. But society should give everyone a fair chance by providing him with access to a lawyer, especially in those challenging situations. Also, in the end, those rules are not a law of nature. They can change, or should change if the resulting system is not accessible by all. If the complexity can only be handles by specialised, expensive lawyers then it will always lead to gross inequality.

Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the 5k is better than the "normal" month with benefit, it is still better to earn the 5k that month, assuming the benefit is immediately restored on the subsequent months with low income.

> It takes up to a month to approve your request for reinstatement. However, this does not mean that your benefits have been completely restored. While you are receiving temporary benefits, the Social Security office is determining your eligibility to completely reinstate your benefits after the six months of temporary benefits. The Social Security office analyzes your medical condition and updates your medical infor…

Yeah, sorry I didn't read that more carefully. Kind of hard to look at something so broken and not be completely discouraged. Sounds like yet another good argument for basic income policies.

Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income

#145

I did about 6 months as a part time TA for a virtual coding bootcamp a while back to earn a little extra cash. The pay wasn't great, but it was easy work and not too many hours. Might be ideal for someone in your situation. On a side note, this is why means testing kinda sucks. Sorry that you have to deal with it.

Means testing?

Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Retired rich people. Whenever a system it setup to help poor people, a harsh system of cutoffs is needed to prevent retired people from qualifying for the benefit by moving money around on paper. The problem is that we have far too many systems to allow relatively well-off people to "zero" their on-paper income, even their personal assets, during retirement. Entire industries exist to facilitate such trickery (see ev…

Starving the poor to prevent feeding the rich seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Or rather like cutting off someone else's nose to spite people it won't matter much to.

The efforts US politicians go through to make sure that some of the people who have paid a disproportionately large amount of taxes don't get a fraction of them back when they don't need it have been valiant. Considering that you could simply tax them enough to create a universal benefit, effectively refunding part of their own taxes and redistributing the rest, I'd suggest that starving the poor is a goal rather than a side-effect.

We can't give people free college, what if people who could afford college go?

Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income

#148
Also have you considered becoming a remote-actuary? We refi'd our house in the US and had to sign documents while living in Berlin and the bank allowed the use of an actuary which we found via a broker online -- I can't remember which. Apparently they can make decent money and you can decide how many gigs to take.

Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is so stressful. A close relative has a similar situation. It is cyclical and is a condition that for some people does improve long term, so when she is on the upswing there is always the thought/hope that it might continue to improve. Then after a few months it goes the other way. Absolutely crushing. At this point, she has something akin to PTSD from battling through these cycles over the years. Hope you can f…

I'm curious what your relative is going through because mine seems cyclical as well.

Started a few years ago as a neuroimmune disorder with periodic and horrific OCD, depression, muscular failures, inability to concentrate, ... Much of that has passed, but it has morphed into ME/CFS. That still still seems triggered and/or related to an underlying neuroimmune issue. When the immune system kicks up, an autoimmune condition also ramps up and causes inflammation in the brain (among other things), which in turn leads to all sorts of symptoms. She used to run half marathons but now a flight of stairs are a big challenge.

None of it is well understood and there aren't good treatments. Some treatments help some people, but it is kind of hit or miss and most of the potential treatments aren't cheap.

It is actually similar in many ways to some forms of long covid, so bizarrely, covid and subsequent research may lead to better therapies that could help her as well. At least that's the hope...

Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income

#150
post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do not have a right to equal representation. I'm not sure that's the case here. It's a matter of knowledge transfer. Lawyers know things. People with money can afford to get knowledge from lawyers. People without money cannot afford to get knowledge from lawyers. It's not a problem with the "system" that mathematicians know more about math than the general public, and that people who have the money can hire a math…

A huge problem with the system is that the laws are not understandable without significant study. Law school is ridiculously expensive. The average cost of a law degree right now is about $200,000. This makes legal representation insanely expensive. A step towards equal representation would start by heavily subsidizing law school making them accessible to everyone. Also, we would need to fund the creation of more law…

As someone who became a 'jailhouse lawyer' I disagree. Once you understand the basics it's pretty understandable, and it's self documenting with our use of case law. Now, the fact that to read the cases, which are the texts of 'the law' since we use case law and you have to pay a fortune to Lexus Nexus should be illegal. If the text of the cases ARE the law of the land (which the whole case law thing demonstrates is the case) then the laws of the land should not be allowed to be locked up behind a paywall. Free access to Lexus Nexus in prison shows it is REQUIRED for fair access to the legal system (they don't give you anything they aren't constitutionally required to in prison), yet prison is the only place you get 'free' access (I mean, I paid for it via the loss of freedom, opportunity, days of my life, etc).
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