Posted by Harlan Messinger on 10/04/07 16:55

Robert Maas, see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t wrote:
>> From: Harlan Messinger <hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net>
>> Poverty is not a disability covered by disability law.
>
> This is an interesting point. IMO it's reasonable to require that
> somebody wishing to purchase something have the money to pay for
> it, and that somebody wishing to purchase some very expensive item
> have a lot of money to pay for it. If people are unemployed because
> of disability, and because of their unemployment they don't have
> money to buy stuff, then it's reasonable that they be disallowed
> from buying it, and it isn't the fault of the seller of goods that
> the disabled person doesn't have enough money to buy stuff.
>
> But what about employment itself? It shouldn't be necessary to have
> lots of money before-the-fact to start a new job to earn money. If
> an employer requires somebody to have lots of money already, as
> qualification for a new job, then the employer *would* be partly
> responsible for the person continuing not to have enough money, and
> I think that would be wrong, and the courts might interpret that is
> deliberate barring of already-poor disabled people from ever
> escaping their poverty.

What are you *talking* about? Where did you ever mention anything that
prevents a person who doesn't already have money from applying for a job
at Toys R Us?

> Making a shopping Web site inaccessible to poverty-level people
> might be reasonable, because after all <hyperbole>if they can't
> afford a brand new computer they probably also can't afford the
> toothbrush they were trying to buy online</hyperbole>. But making
> an employment Web site inaccessible to low-income people who can't
> afford a brand-new computer would seem to me to fall within this
> type of case. Why should ownership of a brand-new computer be a
> requirement of applying for a job online?

Where are you coming up with this "brand-new computer" requirement?

> For work-at-home
> contractors, of course the contractor is expected to provide his
> own computer, but for regular employment if the new computer is
> needed for the job then the employer is supposed to provide it,
> right? What do the rest of you think?

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