Opposition gets rare win on bill to raise stipend for disabled

The Knesset opposition has scored a rare victory in the Knesset, pushing through a bill that will guarantee disabled Israelis get a state stipend equal to the minimum wage.

Currently, the state only gives the handicapped a maximum of NIS 2,714 ($714) monthly while minimum wage stands at NIS 4,825 ($1,269) a month.

The bill will also ensure the stipend goes up each year along with the minimum wage.

The vote passes a preliminary reading by a vote of 42 to 39. It will still have to go through committee and pass another three readings.

“It’s impossible to live off this [currecnt] amount,” MK Dov Khenin (Joint List), one of the bill’s sponsors, says in the Knesset plenum. “Raising the disabled stipend will save many people from poverty, and the battle against poverty is one of the central fights we as a society must wage.”

In a tweet, Joint List head Ayman Odeh calls the bill’s passage a “moment of joy in the plenum.”