My Digital Garden

Named for the 2014 law that created them, the Achieving a Better Life Experience Act, ABLE accounts have been available since 2016 to individuals identified by a doctor as having a disability before the age of 26. Next year, they’ll become available to those identified before the age of 46, which will increase access to an additional 6 million people, including 1 million veterans, according to Indiana State Treasurer Daniel Elliott, who administers the accounts in his state. An estimated 8 million people nationwide already qualify.

“The fact that it used to be that individuals could only save up to $2,000 or they could lose benefits — that was really restricting a lot of families,” Elliot said. “People were forced into a position where they couldn’t save for their futures. Now we’re seeing average account balances of (ABLE accounts) between $11,000 and $12,000.”

Generally, ABLE accounts may reach totals of $100,000 without affecting Supplemental Security Income. Lifetime balance limits for the various state ABLE accounts can range from around $300,000 to over $500,000. They’re administered by state treasurers, and the vast majority can be set up online via their websites. Some ABLE plans accept paper applications as well.

Anyone can contribute to an ABLE account — including the account owner, friends, family, organizations, nonprofits, and employers — up to $19,000 per year in 2025. If the account owner is able to work and not already contributing to a workplace retirement plan, they can contribute an additional amount equal to their yearly gross income. For 2025, that amount is up to an additional $15,560 to $18,810, depending on the state administering the account.

There are also tax advantages. Investment earnings from ABLE accounts remain untaxed as long as money taken from the account is used for “qualified disability expenses,” such as medical treatment, education, tutoring and job training. Account holders may choose from a number of investment options for the funds in their accounts or hold and save the money without investing it further.

Elliot said raising awareness of the accounts is the biggest challenge for the National Association of State Treasurers (NAST), for which he’s also the secretary treasurer.

“Many people are used to the idea that, ‘If I have a disability or my child has one, it could endanger their benefits to save money,’” he said. “We as a state and as a country need to start reaching out to people and saying, ‘Look, you actually can save money now. You could save towards the purchase of a home.’ The hardest thing right now is getting that message out. We need more people to be aware things have changed.”

According to NAST’s data, just 186,641 ABLE accounts existed at the end of 2024, despite an estimated 8 million people qualifying. When the age limit is raised, the accounts will also become available to people whose disabilities may have been the result of an accident in adulthood or developed later in life, such as after a COVID infection.

Andrew Warren, senior associate for policy and research at the Financial Health Network, who studies the financial circumstances of Americans with disabilities, said that the vast majority of people surveyed for a 2023 report by the organization did not know these accounts existed.

“Less than 1% of eligible individuals have these accounts,” Warren said. “Our research show that one of the major barriers to becoming financially healthy for this vulnerable group is asset limits. But there’s an information disconnect between caseworkers and direct services providers on the ground and (administrators of ABLE accounts).”

It is not enough. Not NEARLY enough. But this is still HUGE.

This could mean the difference for becoming homeless and not becoming homeless, or having to stay in an abusive situation.

"A tribal-led nonprofit is creating a network of native bison ranchers that are restoring ecosystems on the Great Plains, restoring native ranchers’ connections with their ancestral land, and restoring the native diet that their ancestors relied on.

Called the Tanka Fund, they coordinate donors and partners to help ranchers secure grazing land access, funds needed to install and repair fencing, increase their herd sizes, and access markets for bison meat across the country.

That’s the human part of the story. But as Dawn Sherman, executive director of the Tanka Fund, told Native Sun News, they’re “buffalo people” and these four-legged, 2,000 lbs. “cousins” are equal-part-protagonists.

The return of the bison means the return of the prairie, one of the three great grassland ecosystems on the planet, of which just 1% remains as it was when the Mayflower arrived.

“Bringing buffalo back to their ancestral homelands is essential to restoring the ecosystem. We know that the buffalo is a keystone species,” said Dawn Sherman, a member of the Lakota, Delaware, Shawnee, and Cree.

“Bringing the buffalo back to the land and to our people, helps restore the ecosystem and everything it supports from the animals to the plants to the people. It’s come full circle. That’s how we see it.”

As Sherman and the Tanka Fund help native ranchers grow their operations, everyone is well aware of the power of the bison to transform the environment: just as nations across Europe are, who are reintroducing wood bison to various ecosystems, for all the same reasons.

Sherman points out the variety of ways in which buffalo anchor the prairie ecosystem. The almost-extinct black-footed ferret, she points out, lived symbiotically with the bison, and with the latter gone, the former followed—nearly.

The long-billed curlew uses bison dung as a disguise to hide nests from predators. Deer, pronghorn antelope, and elk all rely on bison to plow through deep snows and uncover the grasses that these smaller animals can’t reach.

Everywhere the bison hurls its massive body, life springs in the beast’s wake. When bison roll about on the plains, it creates depressions known as wallows. These fill with rainwater and create enormous puddles where amphibians and insects thrive and reproduce. Certain plants evolved to grow in the wet conditions of the wallows which Native Americans harvested for food and medicine.

Native plants evolved under the trampling hooves of millions of bison, and that constant tamping down of the Earth is a key necessity in the spreading of native wildflower seed.

Indeed, Sherman says some of these native ranchers are bringing bison onto lands still visibly affected by the Dust Bowl, and already the animals are acting like a giant wooly cure-all for the land’s ills.

Since 2020, the Tanka Fund, in partnership with the Inter-Tribal Buffalo Council and the Nature Conservancy, has overseen the transfer of 2,300 bison from Nature Conservancy reserves to lands managed by ranchers within the Tanka Fund network.

“[T]he more animals that we can get the more of that prairie we can restore,” said Sherman. “We can help restore the land that has been plowed and has been leased out to cattle ranchers.”"

Took this from Instagram because this is urgent US folks.

You need to call and email your reps no matter if you live in a red or blue state. This cannot be allowed to pass.

& how its republicans top priority to get passed

Spread this far- this could end voting rights for hundreds of millions of Americans

If you are a British/UK citizen, and would like to sign:

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/701159

Colleague: so they were using the wrong species to pollinate their crops.

Me: what do you mean?

Colleague: well they were using a fly species from Canada and they’re growing onions in Texas. The fly they were using was dying in a day in their greenhouses because it’s frigging Texas in May/June.

Me: and no one was studying this or telling them otherwise?

Colleague: not till me.

Me: so they were wasting all that money on an inefficient pollinator and losing out on crop yield.

Colleague: yep…

Currently, Mohammed is aiming to raise €80k - he is only €2.2k away from this goal. He and his family cannot return to Northern Gaza where their home was prior to Oct 7th 2023, as it has been destroyed and he has no means of safely transporting his family and their belongings there. They are currently living in an abandoned school with other displaced people (he has a post detailing this here if you want to know more information).

He needs to raise these funds to restart his children's education, which has been halted for 15 months now due to the ongoing genocide, as well as continuing to pay for basic necessities. He and his family are sharing in the joy of many Palestinians for the current ceasefire deal, and he would like to slowly reintroduce routine into his children's lives so they can have a proper education and resume their childhood once more.

Are people scared that using a white cane will make their blind character seem weak? They can’t use a cane because they’re so special that they already know what’s around them, and other blind people who use guides are inferior because they’re not special?

I’m tired. Give your blind characters white canes and other guides. Let them hold onto their friends, let them have guide dogs. Don’t make white cane users feel ostracized for not being “strong enough” to go without.

Another thing that pisses me off is when a sighted character comes up with the fantasy equivalent of braille and teaches it to the blind character. Braille was invented by Louis Braille, a blind man, in 1824. The blind character should be the one coming up with it.

Tldr I’m blind and tired of sighted people lol

DO NOT LET THEM WIN! Don’t let them do what they did with The Owl House what they did to The ghost and molly Mcgee or Haileys on it or what Cartoon Network did to Infinity train or what Nickelodeon did To Rise Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Come On HELP! Do your best

The next 10 episodes of Marvel’s Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur will drop February 7th on Disney+

We have to binge watch it on Feb 7 on Disney + and wast h the episodes when they air on cable if you have cable and Disney + if not you can watch the episodes on YouTube but please help get these 10 episodes a lot of views more so then the first half of the season we have until Feb 7.

episodes will premiere starting February 6th at 8:00pm (ET/PT), before switching to Saturday Mornings at 10am (ET/PT)

The episodes that will air on cable in February is Feb 6 -22 DONT have the April dates yet but will edit this when I do but please pay attention please keep posting about moon girl every day from now til February 7 ok let’s get moon girl trending and keep it trending.

And contact people in other fandoms dm them or email them tag your posts from other fans you follow or are popular. Please maybe if we convince a million people Disney won’t cancel it which I’m not sure if it isn’t but even if it is don’t give up either