Hard decisions and no way around it

Life is so hard, and it's realistically only getting harder. My partner is rapidly approaching a crossroads that he will be unable to avoid, and he is having the worst time of it.

My partner is a disabled man. Born with Cerebral Palsy, it is something that he will never be able to yoga-stretching-and-positive-thinking his way out of. It is his life.

However, as is readily apparent by anyone even half paying attention (or is in/know people in the disabled community), things are hard and getting worse. Things that should be able to be taken for granted are now suddenly unreliable, or unavailable, or will be shortly. SSI never pays as much as it needs to (below poverty standards) and he is one of the lucky ones that can sort-of work. So, he does a little, to supplement his payment.

And it is destroying him.

I'm not even being hyperbolic, I mean literally. He has one good arm that he has already had surgery on, and it's currently suffering from an overuse injury. His legs and ankles are fucked from being on his feet for hours at a time, and he only really has one good leg to begin with. He's a cashier for christssake! And it's ruining his body!

So now he is trying to weigh the cost of ruining what's left of his mobility for a little extra cushion each month, against quitting and falling back solely on SSI --which the regime has been targeting for decades and may ultimately take away.

The idea of Social Security getting wiped out is a frightening one, and not just to him. I'm sure there's hundreds of thousands of disabled US citizens that are looking at the same sort of choices. How soon could those safety nets collapse? Years, or months? Is it worth it to risk the fall for just a little while without excruciating pain, or is it safer to just break his body for another year for an ungrateful major corporation for a little more cash?

This is what he's struggling with.

I feel so helpless. 

I don't have any way to help him, not really.

I can't guarantee that the regime won't just take SSI away, because I'm honestly terrified that they will. I don't make enough money to support us both, and I suppose it's selfish of me to not want to get a second job so that I can.

But I can't in good conscience encourage him to stay at work. Chronic pain from a permanent disability, for job that doesn't really provide anything besides a paycheck. He earns, like, two vacation days a year because he's part time, and he burns though his sick time because he's partially immune compromised, let alone easily injured.

I don't know how to give him the support he needs. I just hope I do right by him.