JFActivist

HELP Committee Holds Hearing on the Future of Employment for People with Disabilities

by AAPD Development Intern, Alexandria Braboy

On September 15, AAPD staff attended a hearing of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on the future of employment for people with disabilities. The hearing comes on the heels of the 2011 Bureau of Labor report that although the national unemployment rate is about 9 %, the rate is nearly twice that for people with disabilities. Committee Chairman Senator Tom Harkin proposed that the discussion specifically explore the spectrum of employment options that will address the needs and potential of people with disabilities. Panelists also discussed the reasons why people with disabilities face multiple barriers to employment. They called attention to discrimination, prejudiced public perception and expectations, apprehensive employers, and sub-minimum wages as obstacles to gainful employment for people with disabilities. “We have an inherited world and the world we want to create and change,” National Council on Disability Chair Jonathan Young pointed out.

Sheltered workshops were at the center of the discussion on changing and expanding employment options for people with disabilities. One panelist, a parent of a person with a disability, supported the workshop model, which gave her son a chance to work throughout the week. However, Senator Barbara Mikulski and other panelists emphasized that people with disabilities are capable of working in an integrated employment setting. Regardless of their position on the workshop model, all panelists agreed that people with disabilities have the right to competitive employment and diverse job options. Dr. Young summarized, “We don’t need to be guaranteed a chance to succeed, we do need to be guaranteed a chance to try.” AAPD has also maintained that people with disabilities should expect improved employment opportunities.

For more information on AAPD’s work on employment or on Disability Employment month in October, visit: http://bit.ly/o4xF7v

 

Let's Get to Work: Disability, Poverty and the American Jobs Act

by Frankie Mastrangelo, JFA Moderator

Although it’s no secret that we are in tough economic times, new data from the Census Bureau shows just how tough the times really are for people with disabilities. Last year, the nation’s poverty rate rose to 15.1 percent, the highest it’s been since 1993.  This is alarming in itself, but the numbers relating disability and poverty status are even more striking. In 2010, 27.9% of people with disabilities were living below the poverty line, compared to 12.5% of people without disabilities. People with disabilities are far more likely to live in poverty and householders with disabilities are, on average, earning less than half of those without disabilities. Last year, householders without disabilities’ earned a median income of $58,736/year while those with disabilities brought in an average of $25,550/year.

Not surprisingly, the data also reflects income drops for people both with and without disabilities. Yet despite a two-percent drop in median income --to $49,445-- workers without disabilities’ earned more than workers with disabilities.  Male workers without disabilities earned an average of $6,525 more than male workers with disabilities. Working women without disabilities earned $37,028/year compared with working women with disabilities, who earned $31,851 per year.

Today, White House officials will be hosting a live event to answer the public’s questions on President Obama’s job creation plan: the American Jobs Act.  The President says this plan will “put more people back to work and put more money in the pockets of working Americans”. People with disabilities and our supporters need to know whether the AJA will put more Americans with Disabilities back to work.  If we are to change these Census numbers in years to come, our community needs jobs. Let’s make sure the administration hears our concerns and creates policy solutions that benefit all working Americans.