RFK Jr. falsely claimed autistic people won't work, pay taxes, or date; part of his harmful anti-vaxx campaign.

Question

1. As part of his dangerous anti-vaxx crusade, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert Kennedy Jr. spread horrific lies about autistic people by saying they “will never pay taxes. They’ll never hold a job, they’ll never play baseball. They’ll never write a poem. They’ll never go out on a date”

Answer 1

Robert Kennedy Jr. did say this about autistic children. I agree with you that he is spreading lies about autistic people and how they are able to live their lives. While autistic people do have a lower average percentage of employment compared to non autistic adults, saying that they will never be able to work is a flat out lie. According to PubMed , a study that was conducted with 254 adults with ASD found that 61.42 percent were employed. Only 38.58 percent were unemployed. This means that yes, autistic people can and do hold jobs. However RFK Jr also said autistic people will never play baseball. This is also a lie. Tarik El-Abour is a professional baseball player who was diagnosed with autism at age three. He is living proof that autistic people can play baseball. 

Sources : 

Predictors of employment status among adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder - PubMed

Tarik El-Abour, the First Professional Baseball Player Diagnosed with Autism | The Art of Autism

Comments

This is a strong factcheck, and I like that you brought in specific counterexamples like Tarik El-Abour to directly refute RFK Jr.’s claim because it really humanizes the issue. One thing I think could make your factcheck even stronger is addressing the broader harm of generalizing from one study. The PubMed study you cited is helpful, but 254 participants is a pretty small sample, and employment rates can vary a lot depending on access to services, severity of symptoms, and social supports. It might be worth noting that autistic people face systemic barriers, not individual deficits, that contribute to employment gaps. That way, you’re not just saying RFK Jr. is wrong, but also showing why his framing is harmful and misleading on a deeper level.

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I agree with your comment. You cannot speak as a whole for the entire autistic community. I like that you reframe the issue and take a systemic barriers approach. This makes way more sense instead of talking about peoples individual deficits. RFK is simply reinforcing negative stereotype's that are harmful to all of us. Blaming individuals is not the correct way to do things. Instead we should focus on support networks.

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Do you have a source for when/where Kennedy said this? That's a good starting point for your fact-check. Your sources are from several years back, so they are not referring to Kennedy's comments, but refuting what he said, which isn't exactly what the claim is asking.

Answer 2

Yashar Ali posted this comment on bluesky. For some context he regularly reports on political issues. This claim made by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was that autistic individuals "will never pay taxes. They'll never hold a job, they'll never play baseball. They'll never write a poem. They'll never go out on a date" this is simply unsubstantiated. There is no credible evidence to back up what he is saying.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is generally untrustworthy.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/12/02/the-fundamental-problem-with-rfk-jrs-nomination-to-hhs?

Comments

Good job showing who made this claim about RFK and that his claim isn't true but it would be good for you to include evidence as to why is claim isn't true not just that he is untrustworthy.

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Do you have a source for when/where Kennedy said this? Did you check the accuracy of that first?  CNN reported this month that Kennedy did make this comment,  btw. https://www.webcenterfairbanks.com/2025/04/18/rfk-jr-gets-backlash-saying-people-with-autism-will-never-pay-taxes-hold-job-go-date/

Answer 3

RFK Jr. did claim that autistic children will never be able to do those things. The accusation that these children will not do these things is incorrect in itself because of the many examples set. On the Pub Med website it states that 61.42% of those with autism were employed. On the Nerd Daily there's a Q&A with Jen Wilde an autistic author and her book "This Is The Way Way The World Ends". There is also a T.V series "Love On The Spectrum" which shows the experience of dating as an autistic person. These are all examples that autistic people are capable of doing the things RFK Jr. stated they weren't.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28211841/

https://thenerddaily.com/jen-wilde-author-interview/

Answer 4

Robert Kennedy Jr. did indeed make this claim about autistic people. However, the accusations that he is making towards autistic people are completely false and easily disprovable. In April 2023, the unemployment rate in the US was historically low, despite this, 85% of people with autism were unemployed. While this statistic is far less than encouraging, it does immediately disprove RFK Jr.'s claim that autistic people will "never hold a job" because the unemployment rate was not 100%. In addition, the claim that autistic people will "never write a poem" is utterly incorrect. The Autism Books by Autism Authors Project, founded in 2011, has an entire section on poetry by autistic authors which contains over 100 poetry books.

https://arxiv.org/html/2405.06078v1

https://autismbooksbyautisticauthors.com/poetry/