[Excerpt] Two letters changed my life forever. The first came in the summer of 2021, offering me my dream job as a researcher at the Yang-Tan Institute on Employment and Disability at Cornell University’s ILR School. This job would pay me to follow my passion, researching barriers that people with disabilities face in the labor market and creating lasting political and institutional changes.

The second came two years later, and it didn’t evoke the same emotion as the first. I received a letter from the Social Security Administration (SSA)stating that my disability-related benefits would stop immediately due to my work earnings, and I needed to pay back an overpayment of over $100,000. Essentially, the SSA put a price tag on my dream job.