The Accessibility Gap in Employee Benefits

Is Your Benefits Package Actually Inclusive?

When it comes to the workplace, a simple question cuts to the heart of inclusion: are your benefits designed with a realistic understanding of our lives? 

For many in the Deaf and hard of hearing community, the cost of simply living with autonomy is significantly higher. Imagine facing thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket expenses for essential hearing aids, cochlear implants, batteries, and ongoing maintenance. This financial burden, combined with the energy spent navigating a world not built for them, is a constant toll.

This is the Deaf, DeafBlind, and Hard of Hearing Tax (#TheDDBHHTax)—a collective financial and emotional burden that most employers and insurers completely fail to recognize. These issues are not niche concerns; emotional distress and financial stress related to inaccessibility and exclusion repeatedly came up in global focus groups I facilitated with Deaf and hard of hearing professionals over the past several weeks.

A System Built on Stopgaps

There are roughly 48 million Deaf and hard of hearing individuals in the United States. Meanwhile, more than 5% of the world's population is Deaf or hard of hearing—a number that is expected to double by 2050. The urgency for employers to address what truly delivers a quality of life has never been greater; this means moving beyond surface-level inclusion and into tangible action.

Research shows that, in the United States, Deaf and hard of hearing individuals often earn up to $12,000 less per year than their hearing counterparts. There’s also the communication barriers and a lack of workplace accommodations that may lead to fewer opportunities for promotions and career growth.

Systemic barriers, from educational inequities to inaccessible workplaces, often leave many with little choice but to rely on safety-net programs like Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Medicaid. While essential, these supports come with an impossible trade-off: beneficiaries risk losing them if they exceed a $2,000 asset limit. The very systems designed to provide protection often function as temporary Band-Aids, masking the structural inequities driving exclusion.

​​Equitable Benefits as a Business Multiplier

I believe organizations have a responsibility to empower their employees to live happy and healthy lives. Addressing systemic barriers isn't just an ethical mission - it's a business multiplier. Gallup reports that highly engaged employees deliver 23% more profitability and have stronger retention. When employees don't have to constantly worry about access and financial stability, they are free to invest their energy into innovation and collaboration. However, too often, well-intentioned benefits programs look good on paper but fall short in practice.

ABLE Accounts: A Finance Tool We Still Need to Talk About

The Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) Act, enacted in 2014, offers a framework to help individuals with disabilities manage finances without jeopardizing essential government benefits like SSI and Medicaid. ABLE accounts provide tax-advantaged savings and higher contribution limits for working beneficiaries, encouraging financial independence and career advancement.

Here’s what’s new for the ABLE Act in 2025:

• Contribution limits have risen to $19,000 per year, with even more room for working beneficiaries.
  
• Starting in 2026, ABLE account eligibility will expand to include people who acquired a disability before age 46 (up from the current age cutoff of 26). This change could open access for an estimated 6 million additional people—including about 1 million veterans. The latter figure is important to take note of, especially as approximately 30% of veterans have a service-connected disability related to hearing loss or tinnitus, and they are significantly more likely than non-veterans to have hearing loss.

Consider the impact this will have on housing, transportation, and assistive technology. Yet, despite the remarkable benefits of this program, very few employers take the time to inform and encourage their employees to set one up.

Build and Communicate Benefits for All 

Programs like ABLE accounts are a powerful step forward, but they’re not a complete solution. Many Deaf and hard of hearing people don’t rely on these specific benefits, yet they still face the #TheDDBHHTax and other systemic inequities.

Creating a truly inclusive workplace requires a shift from reactive accommodations to proactive, equitable benefits. Simply put: when benefit-related information isn’t accessible, it isn’t inclusive and can impact employee performance, retention, and overall human equity.

Financial wellness programs, wellness reimbursements, and special savings plans—none of these matter if Deaf and hard of hearing professionals can’t access the information or aren’t even made aware these options exist. Too often, benefits materials are provided only in dense print or online PDFs, rarely in ASL or other accessible formats. The result? Financial inaccessibility that reinforces and fuels systemic barriers.

Here’s what proactive, equitable benefits looks like in practice:

• Financial Equity: Offer salaries and benefits that reflect real access costs and provide insurance that covers essential devices and technology.
• Accessible Communication: Ensure all benefit information and onboarding materials are available in accessible formats like ASL and captions.
• Proactive Management: Empower managers and HR to host benefit-related workshops with full ASL and captioning, add accessible language to job postings, and continuously feature resources like ABLE Act information.

Accessibility matters just as much for retail staff, factory workers, and distribution teams as it does for office employees. The way forward is simple: ask Deaf and hard of hearing employees about their needs and let their lived experiences shape the access you provide. When inclusion is built in from the beginning, it strengthens brand loyalty, lowers attrition, and fosters a positive employee experience. It sends a clear message to your valued team: 'We see you. We respect your needs. We want you to thrive.'

Building Inclusive Benefits: A Call to Action

Now that September is here, let's use Deaf Awareness Month as an opportunity to make benefit equity a central part of accessibility, not an afterthought. This critical HR issue goes beyond traditional benefits like insurance or financial planning—whether addressing interpreting services, data equity, or healthcare access, inclusion becomes truly systemic only when every core benefit is intentionally designed to support full participation.

Organizations should ask themselves: Are our benefits truly inclusive? If we were Deaf or hard of hearing, what would we notice? True accessibility and inclusion means employees never have to ask for it—let’s make that the standard, not the exception. This is why 2axend partners with organizations to design and implement inclusive benefits strategies that ensure all employees—Deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing alike—can fully participate, thrive, and feel valued in the workplace.