Employment Gap Between Working-Age People With and Without Disabilities Continues

PR Newswire-US Newswire press release
Published Nov. 7, 2007 on PRNewswire.com

A dramatic 42 percent employment gap separates working-age people with and without disabilities in the workforce, Cornell University researchers reported today.

The report states that 37.7 percent of people with disabilities are employed, compared with 79.7 percent of people without disabilities, making a gap of 42 percentage points. There are 22,382,000 people with disabilities of working age (21-64), 12.9 percent of the total working age population.

The finding is part of an ongoing series of reports released by Cornell University in collaboration with the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD).

"The longstanding employment gap between people with and without disabilities appears to be getting wider. People with disabilities are not keeping pace in this economy. This employment gap has severe consequences for poverty. People with disabilities are much more likely to live in poverty," said Andrew Houtenville, director of Cornell's Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Disability Demographics and Statistics (StatsRRTC).

The researchers found that the poverty gap is 15.9 percent that is 25.4 percent of working-age Americans with disabilities live in poverty compared with 9.5 percent of those without disabilities. The report also noted that people with disabilities constitute 28.4 percent of the working-age American population living in poverty.

This Third Annual Disability Status Report, containing a range of statistics about people with disabilities, including statistics by state, is available online at http://www.DisabilityStatistics.org.

The reports, which will be issued yearly in the Fall by Cornell, "fill a pressing need for timely and relevant statistics about people with disabilities for policy-makers, advocates and the media," said Houtenville.

The Disability Status Reports use the American Community Survey -- the public-use version of the raw data that the Census Bureau uses in its report.