Disclaimer: the following is based on the personal experiences of myself and my parents. What I state as fact may or may not be accurate. (Sorry for the formatting btw, the app still sucks.)
There was a time when every job at a restaurant or store was its own position. If you worked at a burger place preparing the food you were not also a cashier. If you worked at a store as a cashier you did not also stock shelves. Also, apparently businesses use to hire “so many people they had extra employees” which meant that if someone called in sick the place wasn't short staffed.
These days you're just an employee and you get paid the wage of one job while having 2-3, plus most places intentionally hire only the bare minimum staff which makes things worse for everyone if even one person calls in sick. This is bad for everyone except the rich people at the very top, but it occurred to me while brainstorming jobs I might be able to do that this also seriously limits the jobs available to disabled people.
Let's say you're deaf, non-verbal, or just struggle in social situations. You couldn't be a cashier, but maybe you could prepare the food. Except employers won't hire you if you can't do both. Or maybe you have mobility issues and can't stock shelves, but could be a cashier if you were allowed to sit (side note: cashiers should be allowed to sit anyway). Except employers won't hire you if you can't do both, plus they have something against people sitting. Even though they legally can't discriminate against the disabled, they can find other reasons to turn you down.
Maybe they're just not impressed with your resume. Maybe there's a candidate with more experience. Maybe a college education is “prefered” and you only have a high school diploma. My understanding is those are all perfectly legal reasons they could turn you down, and you can't do anything about it because you can't prove that those things wouldn't have been counted against you if you weren't disabled.
I want to work. I want to earn money and be financially independent even though I live with my parents. But is there a job I could do? So far the answer is no. I'm autistic with extra general and social anxiety, the no motivation kind of depression, mild PTSD, and “mild” scoliosis. I have yet to find a job that doesn't require a degree and/or experience that's available in this economy that I could do. But I'm not disabled enough for any kind of benefits (according to the people who look at the notes of four therapists and think “these people don't know what they're talking about”), so my only income is birthday and holiday money from my grandma (which I greatly appreciate; I'm just saying it's not enough to grant financial independence).
If my parents weren't willing and able to provide for me, I would be homeless or dead. Or in prison; I might have snapped by now living on the streets. I can't help but think: how many people like me are out there who don't have the support that I do?