• GamingChairModel@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    This is wrong, because you’re talking about disability insurance in a comment thread about disability discrimination.

    Disability is very broadly defined for the purpose of disability discrimination laws, which is the context of this comment chain.

    Disability is defined specific to a person’s work skills for the purpose of long term disability insurance (like the US’s federally administered Social Security disability insurance). Depending on the program/insurance type, it might require that you can’t hold down any meaningful job, caused by a medical condition that lasts longer than a year.

    For things like short term disability, the disability is defined specific to that person’s preexisting job. Someone who gets an Achilles surgery that prevents them from operating the pedals of a motor vehicle for a few weeks would be “disabled” for the purpose of short term disability insurance if they’re a truck driver, and might not even be disabled if their day job is something like being a telemarketer who sits at a desk for their job.

    • toomanypancakes@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Just wanted to expand on this

      Depending on the program/insurance type, it might require that you can’t hold down any meaningful job, caused by a medical condition that lasts longer than a year.

      For SSI or SSDI, you basically have to be bed bound (“less than sedentary”), statutorially blind (corrected visual acuity 20/200 in the good eye), have a condition severe enough it meets the strict requirements in SSA’s listings of impairments, or have a mental condition that prevents you from being at all able to fulfill the demands of unskilled work. The rules get more lenient after age 50 the older you get though.