Your Money or Your Life

COVID safety is costing disabled people our income, professional opportunities, and careers. I worked in progressive politics, and I'm one of them.

About a year and a half ago, I interviewed for a job. I’d already managed a progressive Democrat’s Congressional campaign in 2020, and I’d done so remotely. This call was for another Campaign Manager role, and I liked the candidate. Our talk went well; our values seemed to accord on many issues of the day. We were both passionate about fighting wealth inequality, improving and expanding social services, and building solidarity with and between marginalized communities.

At the end of the call, during which I brought up COVID multiple times, he asked me how quickly I could be “on the ground”. It was our last conversation.

As a person who practices COVID safety- and now, a year later, also has post-COVID health problems- I can’t be “on the ground.” I can’t be in the office. I can’t attend your fundraisers. And I can’t continually risk reinfection with a virus that already left me with debilitating week-long migraines and a very limited energy envelope.