From the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post ‘Federal Eye’ blog,  and the Kansas City Star:

In its first detailed look at employment for workers with disabilities,  the federal government reports that these workers are far more likely than people without disabilities to be out of work or working only part-time.

According to the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, just 19.2 percent of all Americans with disabilities are earning a paycheck, compared to 64.5 percent of Americans without disabilities. Of those with disabilities who are working, nearly one third are employed only part time.

The BLS also reported that the average unemployment rate for workers with disabilities was 16.4 percent as of July, up sharply from 14.5 percent last year. For those without disabilities, the unemployment rate last year was 9 percent. About 8 in 10 persons with disabilities are not considered part of the labor force because they aren’t looking for or holding a job. That compares to 3 in 10 people without disabilities.

Kathy Martinez, assistant secretary for the Labor Department’s office of disability employment policy, says some employers are hesitant to hire disabled workers because they fear added costs to provide special accommodations or additional training. In some cases this could be considered discrimination, which is illegal. “The biggest barrier for us is attitude and fear—the misconception of what hiring people with a disability might mean,” she said.

… That the overall jobless rates tend to be higher among workers with disabilities is partly a symptom of the recession and partly the result of a system that places income support — such as disability benefits — over employment assistance, said Andrew Houtenville, an economist and the research director of the Institute on Disability at the University of New Hampshire.

“We have really low expectations for the population with disabilities as a system,” said Mr. Houtenville. “We want to provide people with financial support…but we have to do a better job providing employment services in a very timely fashion.”

By Clark Kauffman in the Des Moines Register, Associated Press:

An administrative law judge has ruled that a Texas company accused of abusing and underpaying workers with intellectual disabilities need only pay  a fine of $174,660, or 15 percent of the fine proposed by an Iowa state agency. Either side can appeal the ruling.

Judge Jeffrey Farrell concluded that the company had been acting in good faith, and had complied with the law for the first 40 years it did business. The company, Henry’s Turkey Service, has been accused of housing its workers in unsafe conditions in a delapidated bunkhouse, and paying them only about $65 per month regardless of the hours they worked.

Iowa Workforce Development, the agency that enforces state labor laws, had proposed a fine of $1,164,000.

Earlier posts here.

See also:

4 Atalissa men’s welfare doubted — by Clark Kauffman in the Des Moines Register.

Four of the mentally retarded men who worked for Henry’s Turkey Service in eastern Iowa are now the focus of an escalating battle involving mental health advocates, the Texas attorney general and the family that founded Henry’s.

“These men are still being held hostage by the family that ran the Atalissa bunkhouse,” said Sylvia Piper of Iowa Protection and Advocacy.

From USA Today:

A survey commissioned by the Kessler Foundation/National Organization on Disabilities finds that the ADA has not made meaningful progress in improving the quality of life for people with disabilities.

The survey shows that more must be done to help people with disabilities get ahead, said Carol Glazer, president of the National Organization on Disability.

“While education has improved considerably, joblessness has not. We as a nation must figure this out,” she said.

Among the survey’s key findings:

• People with disabilities still lag in key areas such as employment, access to health care and social interactions;

• 21% of disabled working-age Americans had a job in the past year, versus 59% for those without disabilities;

• 19% of people with disabilities said they did not get the medical care they needed in the past year, with lack of insurance coverage cited as the top reason;

• 48% of people with disabilities eat out at a restaurant twice a month, compared to 75% of those without disabilities; and

• 34% of disabled people say inadequate transportation is a problem, compared to 16% of those without disabilities, a gap that has widened 5 percentage points since 1986.

Related post here.

EEOC press release, Washington Post, Federal Times:

A report released this week by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) found that people with targeted disabilities still comprise less than one percent (0.88 percent) of the total federal work force. Targeted disabilities include deafness, blindness, missing extremities, partial or complete paralysis, convulsive disorders, mental retardation, mental illness, and distortion of the limb and/or spine.

According to the report, the percentage of federal employees with targeted disabilities held steady in fiscal 2009 for the first time since 1995, halting a 13-year decline.

“As the largest employer in the nation, the federal government should lead the way in creating a diverse and just workplace,” said EEOC Chair Jacqueline A. Berrien. “Government employers need to continue to recruit and promote employees who represent the tapestry of America. They must also improve the efficiency of the complaint process so that justice delayed is not justice denied. We look forward to assisting the federal government to become an exemplary employer.”

An executive order signed by the president this week ordered federal agencies to hire 100,000 more employees with disabilities over the next five years, and mandated that hiring managers and human resource staff members be trained on how to employ people with disabilities.

From CNN:

Marking the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, President Obama today signed an executive order to increase government hiring of people with disabilities.

“Not dependence but independence: That’s what the ADA was all about,” Obama said at a White House reception attended by several hundred guests, including Cabinet members, legislators and activists for the disabled.

A recent government report found that fewer than one percent of federal workers have targeted disabilities including deafness, blindness, missing limbs, partial or complete paralysis, convulsive disorders, mental retardation, mental illness and limb or spine distortions, as compared with one in five members of the general population.

Earlier posts here.

See also:

Remarks by Attorney General Eric Holder

Q&A with Kareem Dale, Obama’s top adviser on disability issues, in the Washington Post.

Q&A with Andy Imparato, president and CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities, in the Washington Post.

Reporting 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.)

By Roger Bradley in the Ft. Myers [Florida] News Press:

How will our community reduce the 80 percent unemployment rate for people with disabilities in an area already saturated with unemployment? How will our community provide adequate transportation services which are so essential to avoid isolation of the disabled community during an era affected by an atmosphere of budget reductions? What can we do to remove the non-physical communication barriers inherent in the cyberspace medium of the World Wide Web?

In the future, we shouldn’t need legislation to motivate our community to make accommodating changes for anyone. The economic and societal benefits of doing so should be obvious, in addition to the fact that it is just the right thing to do.

Bradley is the executive director of LARC of Lee County, Florida.