Disabled People Deserve to Be Paid for Our Labour
On The Value Of Disabled Voices
There is a strange, sticky expectation that clings to disabled people whenever we create something of value.
We are praised.
We are thanked.
We are told how important our work is.
And then, very often, we are asked to give it away.
Disabled people are invited to panels “for exposure”. Asked to write articles “for awareness”. Expected to share lived experience “to help others”. Encouraged to build communities, moderate spaces, mentor peers, consult on policy, and educate professionals; without pay.
This is framed as generosity. As activism. As community care.
In reality, it is labour. And labour deserves compensation.
The Myth of the Grateful Disabled Creator
There is a long cultural story about disabled people as beneficiaries rather than contributors. We are framed as recipients of support, not producers of value. Helped, not helping. Dependent, not generative.
So when disabled people create work, writing, research, training, art, facilitation, emotional labour, it is often received with a kind of patronising awe. As though the act of creation itself is the reward. You should be grateful, the subtext says, that anyone is listening at all.
This framing quietly strips disabled people of professional legitimacy. It turns our labour into charity and our expertise into a favour. It reframes skill, time, and emotional investment as something we should donate out of moral obligation.
But gratitude does not pay rent.
Exposure does not cover medication.
Praise does not keep the lights on.
Lived Experience Is Not Free Raw Material
Disabled people are constantly asked to mine our own lives for content.
Tell us your story.
Share your trauma.
Explain your burnout.
Translate your pain into something usable.
This is often positioned as empowering, but it comes with a cost. Reliving marginalisation is not neutral. It takes cognitive energy, emotional regulation, time, recovery. For many disabled people, particularly those who are neurodivergent, chronically ill, or traumatised, this cost is significant.
Yet, lived experience is treated as though it appears effortlessly, like a natural resource that can be extracted without consequence.
If a researcher is paid to analyse data, why is the person who is the data expected to work for free?
If a consultant invoices for strategic insight, why is disabled insight discounted because it comes from survival rather than spreadsheets?
Disabled knowledge is still knowledge. Often it is the most accurate, grounded, and system-literate knowledge available. That does not make it less worthy of pay; it makes it more so.
Passion Is Not a Payment Model
Disabled creators are frequently told that our work is “important”, “vital”, or “life-changing”. Often it is. But importance has become a convenient excuse for exploitation. The more socially valuable the work, the less people expect to pay for it.
We see this especially in disability and mental health spaces, where passion is weaponised. You care about this, so you should do it anyway. You believe in the cause, so money shouldn’t matter. You’re helping your own community, so it’s not really work.
This logic collapses under even the gentlest scrutiny.
Caring deeply about something does not negate the need to eat. Believing in justice does not eliminate bills. Commitment is not the absence of exhaustion.
In fact, passion without pay is one of the fastest routes to burnout. Many disabled people already live at the edge of their capacity, managing fluctuating energy, pain, executive load, and systemic barriers. Expecting unpaid labour on top of that is negligent at best, exploitative at worst.
The Access Tax Nobody Talks About
Disabled labour is often more costly to produce, not less.
We work around pain flare-ups.
We pace energy.
We manage sensory environments.
We navigate inaccessible systems.
We absorb the friction of a world not built for us.
This invisible access labour rarely appears in budgets. But it is real work, happening alongside the visible output.
When disabled people are unpaid, we are absorbing the cost of access failures on behalf of institutions that should know better. Pay is not a bonus. It is a partial reimbursement for labour already done under unequal conditions.
Community Care Does Not Mean Self-Erasure
There is a real tension here, and it deserves honesty.
Disabled communities do rely on mutual aid, peer support, and care that exists outside market logic. That matters. It saves lives. It builds belonging. It should not be flattened into a transaction.
But there is a difference between chosen mutual care and coerced free labour.
The difference is power.
When organisations, platforms, or professionals with resources expect disabled people to work for nothing, that is extraction. Sadly, even other disabled people can place the value judgement of moral failure on other disabled people when they try to be paid for their labour.
Community care should not be a justification for institutions and individuals to abdicate responsibility. Nor should disabled people be expected to subsidise entire systems with our unpaid labour while others build careers on the back of our insight.
Pay Is About Dignity, Not Greed
Asking to be paid is often framed as being “difficult”, “ungrateful”, or “commercialising” the work. Disabled people, in particular, are punished socially for asserting boundaries around money.
But payment is not about greed. It is about dignity.
It says: my time has value.
It says: my energy is finite.
It says: my survival matters too.
Payment allows disabled people to continue creating sustainably. It allows us to say no when necessary and yes without harm. It allows disabled knowledge to exist beyond martyrdom.
Most importantly, it shifts the narrative. It places disabled people not as inspirational volunteers, but as professionals, thinkers, artists, educators, and leaders.
A World That Pays Disabled People Thinks Better
Here is the quiet truth beneath all of this.
When disabled people are unpaid, their voices narrow. Only those with external support, inherited privilege, or the capacity to burn themselves out can afford to keep speaking.
When disabled people are paid, diversity of experience expands. More people can contribute. More nuance enters the conversation. More truth survives long enough to be heard.
Paying disabled people is an investment in better thinking, better systems, and more honest knowledge.
A world that compensates disabled labour is a world that takes disabled people seriously.
And we deserve nothing less.
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