ADA brings little progress in the workplace
July 26th, 2010Reporting at MSNBC, Eve Tahmincioglu says Americans with disabilities still face overwhelming barriers to employment two decades after the enactment of the ADA. A recent Harris Survey of working-aged people with disabilities found that only 21 percent were employed either full or part-time, compared with 59 percent of people without disabilities.
The study, commissioned by the National Organization on Disability and the Kessler Foundation, said 73 percent of those without jobs cited their disability as the reason they were unemployed. The survey also found that people with disabilities are twice as likely as people without disabilities to have annual household incomes of $15,000 or less.
“There have been great improvements because of the ADA, but discrimination in the workplace is still at an unacceptable level,” said Rodger DeRose, CEO of the Kessler Foundation.
… Without job opportunities, DeRose said, all the accessibility advances for disabled folks — such as ramps and parking spots — that resulted thanks to the Act, won’t truly help the disabled integrate fully into society, both socially and economically.
(With video from the NBC Today Show, featuring NOD board member Bonnie St. John and Alana Wallace, actor in the “Think Beyond the Label” public service campaign.)
Our RSS Feed
August 18th, 2010 at 9:19 pm
Louis,
Maybe you hadn’t been paying attention to what everyone has been saying, so I’ll start with giving you the benefit of the doubt. No one is “whining” about their disability — they are struggling with the impact their disability has on their quality of life. If you are not yourself disabled, then good for you — make the most of it. But the difference between you and someone whose disability impairs their prospects getting a job, maneuvering through the world, doing so with chronic pain, dealing daily with discrimination and humiliation perhaps renders you unable to feel empathy for others who are not like you. That’s a real shame.
I thought I would point out one little thing you may wish to consider going forward on the primrose path – it takes one single moment to go from able to disabled — an accident, a stroke, an act of violence — a small, random thing you did not prepare for, could not see coming, could not do anything about. That’s all. And I certainly hope that never happens to you, or to anyone you love.
But, if it does, I suggest you think back to what you said here. And if it doesn’t? Then try to put yourself in someone else’s shoes …
August 7th, 2010 at 9:50 am
Maybe if you all started dealing with your disabilities instead of whining about them all the time there would be some progress. No one wants to put up with some self-entitled complainer who thinks everything should be done for them just because of they are different than everyone else.