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Tabi Haly defies expectations. She’s a woman with a progressive muscular illness; she can’t move her body and she needs round-the-clock care from aides. She wasn’t expected to go to college, or to get a job — much less become a vice president at the banking giant JPMorgan Chase.
Even staying alive and healthy defied expectations. “People with spinal muscular atrophy like myself, living to my age already is a huge win,” says Haly, who is 40.
Haly’s success as a software engineer in New York City was made possible by a government program called Supplemental Security Income, or SSI. It gives Haly access to crucial medical coverage.