Workers with disabilities feel vulnerable as jobs vanish
March 25th, 2008From the Sacramento [CA] Bee:
As the economy sours, advocates for people with disabilities are expressing concern about that population’s already bleak employment prospects.
A 2004 Cornell University study showed just 37.5 percent of the nation’s working-age people with disabilities were employed, compared with 77.8 percent of those without disabilities.
With the Sacramento region’s unemployment rate at 6.2 percent in February – eight-tenths of a percentage point higher than it was a year ago – some advocates say people with disabilities are taking a particularly hard hit.
“People with disabilities should not be the last hired and the first fired,” said Bryon MacDonald, of the World Institute on Disability, a public policy center in Oakland. …. MacDonald and other advocates worry that proposed budget cuts to state programs for the disabled, which provide everything from health benefits to vocational training, would exacerbate the economic plight of a population that too often lives near or below the poverty line.
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on Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 at 3:56 am and is filed under NOT2BEMISSED, benefits, business, economics, employment, politics.
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