I'm legally blind and Canadian. Each province can choose whether or not to subsidize low-vision and blindness support programs, and my province has chosen not to. I don't have any of the assistive devices I need, as such, I'm unemployed and unable to pursue further education at the present time.

One of the things that's been most effective at lowering the digital divide is the open source movement. I can't afford the jaws screen reader. But thanks to $1, I don't need it. The internet and the open source software movement have empowered blind people to help each other out directly, in ways that were never possible before, without being beholden to government support or sighted charity. Even if we manage to get all the assistive technology we need, the prices these companies charge mean that purchases can generally only happen through government programs. This removes the ability for blind people to make our own purchasing decisions; instead, some sighted government functionary decides what technology it will fund for blind people. That's why in my mind the most important thing is working to bring the price of this technology down, rather than working to get more government funding. Because once assistive technology becomes affordable to the average person, it means we get to make our own purchases, and decide on our own needs. It also opens up the possibility of free market competition improving products for everyone. Right now the assistive technology companies know blind people can't afford there software directly. So they're selling to governments and large corporations; we're not even really the customer for the stuff we're given to use!

Right now I can buy a decent windows laptop for $600. But if it wasn't for NVDA, I'd have to spend $1200 to buy a screen reader for it. More than twice the price of the laptop for required software? That's insane!

I’m assuming you are American? I’m in the UK and here we have a scheme called Access to Eork, which purchases the appropriate software/equipment needed to do a job. I literally would not have been able to maintain my employment for as long as I did without using zoomtext software.
I’m not working now however as I also have hearing loss and I use a textphone. The textphone became unreadable to me and I exhausted all available solutions. My employer could no longer find a suitable role for me that did not include telephone work.

Now I rely on apple products. It’s relatively affordable, it’s very accessible. I do t have the “best” but what I have works ok for me,

The main issue for me is lack of dynamic text on websites (and lack of accessible captioning).

Apple uses dynamic text. But you can click through to a link and that site doesn’t so it’s useless to me.

Yes u doubted my I’ve felt disadvantaged, been less informed, been isolated due to lack of being able to access stuff.

Good luck with your research