Bruce Helmer and Peg Webb

Overall, there are about 42.5 million Americans who live with disabilities, making up 13% of the population, according to 2021 Census data. This group includes people who have hearing, vision, cognitive, walking, self-care, or difficulties living independently.

Not surprisingly, older Americans are significantly more likely than younger adults to have a disability (45% of Americans 75 and older vs. 12% of adults ages 35 to 64); their most common disabilities include difficulties with walking, independent living, or cognition.

Families with special needs can be hard-pressed to set long-term goals, create a plan, and implement it. For family members with more severe conditions such as autism, many parents find themselves in a race against time to create a plan to cover health care, living expenses, and therapies that can last the special-needs family member’s lifetime — from childhood to after the parents have gone.

This article is intended to provide an overview of how to plan for special needs situations using a broad array of available public and private resources.

Elements of a special needs financial plan

The biggest challenge for most families is transitioning a special-needs child from high school, where benefits are readily available, to early adulthood and beyond. When such support abruptly ends, many parents don’t know what planning questions to ask or know where to turn.

We believe the main goal for parents of special-needs kids is to create a long-term vision for the future — a life plan. The plan should include financial planning and considerations, and directions regarding all of the benefits that may be available to your loved ones. It should break down all family members’ goals into discrete, manageable buckets.

In our experience, the special-needs buckets will often look very different given the uncertainty of the time horizon. In terms of financial support, we believe families should turn to readily available public resources as their first resort. Here are some common approaches (among others):

Government assistance: The most readily accessible support for special needs families may come from Supplemental Security Income (SSI), which provides a monthly income stream to any qualifying person. To qualify for SSI, an individual must be elderly, blind, or disabled, and recipients must follow strict guidelines around other types of income earned and assets owned or risk losing benefits. SSI can provide crucial support to people with special needs, as they often lack the work or other experience required to be eligible for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). The maximum SSI monthly benefit in 2024 is modest: $943 for individuals and $1,415 for a couple; it’s reduced by factors such as other income, living situation, and so on. Many state programs provide additional benefits that can increase the monthly payment to more than the federal maximum (subject to income and asset testing).

Health care benefits: Raising a child to age 18 in the U.S. costs $240,000, on average, but people with disabilities or special needs have greater health care costs and usage than an average person. For example, according to Autism Speaks, the average lifetime costs of care for an autistic individual range from $1.4 million to $2.4 million. Furthermore, 38% of individuals with disabilities have 10 or more annual doctor visits, compared to only 6% of individuals without disabilities, according to the National Disability Navigator Resource Collaborative.

People with disabilities generally have three available healthc are options: (1) Medicaid covers individuals who cannot pay for health care independently, including children, older adults, the blind, and anyone eligible to receive federally assisted income maintenance payments. (2) Medicare primarily covers Americans over age 65, but also individuals who are under 65 and receiving SSDI benefits (there are qualifying tests for eligibility, and the cost of Medicare Part B will be deducted from the SSDI monthly benefit).

There’s also coverage for adult children incapable of self-support. (3) The Affordable Care Act (ACA) allows young adults to stay on their parents’ health insurance until age 26 — including married and unmarried children. For an adult child incapable of self-support due to a physical/mental disability that existed before turning age 26, they can continue to receive coverage under their parent’s health care plan after age 26.

Life Insurance: For families facing a long-term funding gap, life insurance may be an option. Parents can buy a policy that will pay a death benefit upon the death of the policy owner or at the second spouse’s death. This strategy can be helpful for young families, who can buy more coverage when it’s less expensive.

Special needs trust: In certain cases, families may want to restrict the beneficiary’s access to trust assets. By setting up and funding a special needs trust, the trust assets will not be considered legally available to the beneficiary, and won’t jeopardize Medicaid, SSDI, or SSI benefits. In addition, there’s no asset limit to what can be held in the trust. In these more often complex situations, families retain a financial adviser to advise on trust assets and see that the donor’s wishes are carried out.

Having the right team in place is critical

Families navigating this world barely have time for their own personal, emotional, and financial well-being. Parents may name a close friend or trusted aunt or uncle as trustee for their special needs child. But are they up to the task and the responsibility? We think families need to consider selecting a fiduciary to help handle their child’s care over their lifetime; many of the advisers at Wealth Enhancement Group have helped ease this burden for numerous families around the country. The advantage of working with an adviser is that parents may gain comfort knowing that their child’s day-to-day living needs will be provided for long after they’re gone.

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The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual.

Bruce Helmer and Peg Webb are financial advisers at Wealth Enhancement Group and co-hosts of “Your Money” on WCCO 830 AM on Sunday mornings. Email Bruce and Peg at yourmoney@wealthenhancement.com. Securities offered through LPL Financial, member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services, LLC, a registered investment advisor. Wealth Enhancement Group and Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services are separate entities from LPL Financial.

Ramsey County has abandoned plans to build a “streetcar” line from St. Paul’s Union Depot down West Seventh Street to the airport and the Mall of America in Bloomington. Despite at least five years of promotion and study, probably longer, we were never quite clear what was meant by streetcar, but we knew it was unnecessary, unwanted and obscenely expensive. We knew it in our heart of hearts.

We also learned, amazingly enough in the very same week, that a majority of the Maplewood City Council no longer intends to support the “Purple Line,” the bus rapid transit line that was to have operated between Union Depot and White Bear Lake, it too being unnecessary, unwanted, obscenely expensive and hardly rapid, not with 21 stops.

Thank you.

Good leadership should more often mean not spending our money.

These ridiculous behavioral prompts were disguised as green and thus meaningful to a large and bustling metropolis teeming with commuters who couldn’t get from downtown to the airport or the suburbs north and east of St. Paul.

The next thing you know, we’ll have another miracle. We will gather ourselves and stop pretending. There isn’t anybody downtown. Buildings are closing. Real estate is for sale. Restaurants are hanging it up. There is no traffic. Our political capital and imagination should be spent on solving the disappearing city, not trying to accommodate the travel needs of non-existent commuters.

Maplewood, just like White Bear Lake previously, came to its senses. Maplewood Mayor Marylee Abrams cited traffic concerns, negative impacts on businesses and neighborhoods, not to mention reduced ridership projections.

“And I think just using common sense,” Abrams said, “an investment of $450 million and great disruption to our community, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

What that lady said!

The Metropolitan Council, an unelected body that shouldn’t be spending our money so incompetently, vows to fight on. But they are clinging only to their bromides and their boilerplate, not reality. In fact, they have, what else, a vision.

“We look forward to advancing a regional transit vision that will connect our communities,” said Terri Dresen, a Met Council spokeswoman, “and ensure future prosperity and we remain steadfast …” And yada, yada, yada

Prosperity? All the Met Council does is blow big dough, hundreds and hundreds of millions of the beleaguered taxpayers’ money. The Southwest light-rail line is a case study of alarming incompetence. We don’t want your transportation visions.

Ramsey County at least cut its losses. After years of study and untold millions spent on planning, Ramsey County Commissioner Rafael Ortega, the county’s rail chairman, finally threw in the towel on the $2.1 billion project and did the right thing. That wasn’t easy for Ortega. The streetcar, or whatever it was, was his baby.

“For me, to continue to spend taxpayers’ money without solid support from our agency partners,” Ortega said, “didn’t seem like the prudent thing to do.”

What that man said!

If we listed 100 problems faced by the Twin Cities, and St. Paul in particular, more public transportation would be 101st.

Good leadership should more often mean not spending our money.

Joe Soucheray can be reached at jsoucheray@pioneerpress.com. Soucheray’s “Garage Logic” podcast can be heard at garagelogic.com.

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Amy Lindgren

Are we headed for a tight job market? Are we in one now?

Although we’ll need the magic of hindsight to find out, we do have data to help direct us in the meantime.

For example, as a nation we’re holding steady with the unemployment rate, which is low (4.3%). We’re also continuing to add jobs (89,000 in July and 142,000 in August), and employers are generally stating they are not planning any major layoffs.

Those are good indicators of a healthy job market. But there’s always another side to the coin. In this case, it relates to employer hesitation in adding workers.

For example, although we’re gaining jobs, the pace of that growth has slowed. Likewise, the number of postings has declined and the length of time between interviews and offers seems to be inching up again.

Reasons for slowing down would naturally vary from employer to employer but there are shared concerns around common issues. Inflation, the likely (but uncertain) interest rate cuts anticipated for the coming year, and the presidential election could all contribute to slowing or even stopping the hiring process for employers.

These are normal responses to uncertainty and not necessarily concerning. But if you’re a job seeker who still thinks it’s a hot market for workers, you’ll want to adjust your thinking.

The following tips will provide a throw-back reminder of what to do when the job market is less accommodating than it has been in the recent past.

If you’re working now

1. Delay a job change. Unless your position is miserable or on the verge of collapse, give yourself a few months or at least until after the election before making any moves.

2. Consider cross-training. You won’t become invaluable or impervious to layoff, but being able to switch departments could buffer you if your employer hits a rough patch.

3. Find an internal mentor. Having another perspective can be invaluable in any circumstance, but especially so if your workplace starts to wobble.

If you’re job seeking now

4. Review your job goal. Have you been shooting for something a couple of levels higher than your past position? Remember that employers might be more risk-averse, wanting certainty that someone can handle the job without much of an on-ramp.

5. Freshen your dates. Being unemployed for months or even years isn’t necessarily a problem, but showing nothing to indicate added value since your last job could be. Internships, certifications, part-time jobs and side hustles in the field would be the gold standard, but even an online class can demonstrate refreshed skills and commitment to the related work.

6. Don’t over-rely on postings. The tighter the job market, the less likely an employer will broadly advertise an opening — or advertise at all. It’s a matter of not wanting to be inundated with responses, and perhaps of not needing to market when candidates might already be knocking on the door. Not seeing a posting doesn’t mean there’s not an opening. To reverse the process, create a list of places you’d like to work, then reach out to department managers or current employees to ask about future hiring plans.

Whether or not you’re working or job seeking now

7. Increase your savings. This is obviously easier for someone with a paycheck, so the application of this step will be varied. But any steps you can take to set aside money or reduce expenses will help if the job market does contract.

8. Increase your networking. Regardless of what’s happening in the broader economy, the fastest and most certain way into a job has always been through contacts and friends. To increase your networking, you might actively connect with new people or simply re-connect with those you already know. Then, if something does happen, everyone in that circle of connections will have better options for recovering, including you.

9. Get involved in something. If you’re on a job-family-sleep-job schedule, it might seem difficult to wedge something else in. Even so, having a class or volunteer role or even a hobby such as a biking club can provide the “extra” employers like to see in their candidates; it can also provide another pool of networking relationships. These benefits are even more true for job seekers who are currently unemployed.

Will you need these tips for a tight job market? Because the economy is cyclical, the answer is almost certainly yes. We just don’t know when they might be needed, which is why it’s good to know about them now.

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Amy Lindgren owns a career consulting firm in St. Paul. She can be reached at alindgren@prototypecareerservice.com.