The Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) Act allows people with disabilities to save money in a tax-advantaged ABLE account such as ABLEnow, while remaining eligible for most means-tested benefits. Unfortunately, millions of Americans with physical and mental disabilities, as well as other severe functional limitations, are not eligible to open an ABLE account.

Currently, only individuals with an onset of disability prior to age 26 are eligible to open an ABLE account. (Learn more about eligibility.) Advocates are working to increase access to this groundbreaking financial program.

“The way the law is written is if you get diagnosed after your 26th birthday, you’re out of luck,” explains advocate Aaron Kaufman in this Washington Post article. “You step on an IED in Afghanistan, and all of a sudden, you’re in a wheelchair. How are you going to pay for that?”

For the first time since the ABLE Age Adjustment Act was introduced in 2016, it passed through a congressional committee. In June 2022, the Senate Finance Committee voted unanimously in support of the ABLE Age Adjustment Act, bringing it closer to becoming law.

The ABLE Age Adjustment Act would expand ABLE eligibility to individuals whose disability occurred before age 46. This would empower more than six million additional Americans with disabilities, including one million veterans, to save money in an ABLE account without jeopardizing their eligibility for certain services and supports.

The ABLE Age Adjustment Act is now included in the Enhancing American Retirement Now (EARN) Act advancing to the Senate for consideration.

Join ABLEnow to support passage of the ABLE Age Adjustment Act (S. 331 and H.R. 1219). View this advocacy toolkit for resources from the National Association of State Treasurers. 

Information as of August 1, 2022.