Intractable Unemployment: Why Don’t the Numbers Change?

| ADA at 20

If the ADA can’t change the employment picture for people with disabilities, can anything?

By Tamar Asedo Sherman

It’s been nearly 20 years since passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which promised an end to discrimination in hiring people with disabilities, yet statistics show that the unemployment rate has not improved. If anything, despite the proliferation of policies, programs and personnel all aimed at helping people with disabilities get back to work, it’s gotten worse.

Statistics abound, but a simple way to look at the problem is to consider the rate of labor force participation of people with disabilities compared to those without disabilities. According to Richard Horne, director of the division for policy, planning and research with the Office of

Disability Employment Policy at the U.S. Department of Labor. As of December 2009, there were 27 million people with disabilities age 16 or older. Of those, 21.2 million are not in the labor force—that is, they are not working and not looking for work. This means 5.8 million are in the labor force—21.6%, compared to 70% of those without disabilities.

The Social Security Disincentive

Several experts in the field of employment and disability are blaming the availability of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI), not ignorant employers who refuse to recognize the positive contributions that people with disabilities can make.

Economist Andrew Houtenville, research director of the Institute on Disability at the University of New Hampshire (UNH), said, “I suspect that these Social Security programs, which can take two years to get on, where people have to insist they cannot work, are pulling people with disabilities out of the work force.”

Houtenville noted that the employment of people with disabilities has been declining since the mid 1970s, about the time that SSI was started. His opinion is that our all or nothing system is at fault. If a recipient earns more than the allotted Substantial Gainful Activity level, currently set at $1,000 a month for SSDI, the individual loses the total benefit. That is a strong disincentive to return to work, especially if it took so long to qualify for the benefit in the first place, Houtenville said.

Judy Young, assistant director of training and development at Cornell University’s Employment and Disability Institute, noted that only 0.5% of SSDI recipients ever get off benefits, despite the availability of various work incentives such as continued medical coverage and vocational rehabilitation services.

She related an anecdote from when she worked in job placement, of a woman who was offered a job but asked for a lower salary because she didn’t want to lose her benefits.

The ADA Effect

Sarah von Schrader, of Cornell’s Employment and Disability Institute, notes that some say passage of the ADA has actually been detrimental to the employment of people with disabilities. It has meant that employers are less willing to hire people with disabilities for fear of never being able to fire them, for having to pay higher insurance rates, and for having high costs of making accommodations.

Those fears are unfounded.

The ADA has definitely improved the situation on accommodation and retention of existing workers who have been injured or acquired a disability. Ann Hirsh, co-director of the Job Accommodation Network (JAN), said her organization has seen an increase since the ADA went into effect to about 33,000 inquiries per year. The organization provides guidance and information to people with disabilities, employers and rehabilitation professionals on how to make accommodations for individual situations. The increase has been primarily in terms of employers wanting to retain a valued employee.

The latest statistics show that in 56% of cases, there is no cost whatsoever to an accommodation. It might mean using software to magnify a computer screen that is already built in to the computer, an adjustment in work schedule or in job responsibilities. It might mean putting information in writing instead of giving it verbally, or just the opposite. It might mean eliminating distractions for someone, or taking someone else out of isolation and out into an area with more people.

When there is a cost, the average is around $600, she added. “We deal with all kinds of accommodations. The fear of having to construct ramps or renovate bathrooms is unfounded,” she said. Not everyone with a disability uses a wheelchair.

Contact www.jan.wvu.edu, or call 800-ADA-WORK, (V) or 877781-9403 (TTY), for help with your individual situation.

In terms of complaints against employers for discrimination in employment, there, too, employers have been prevailing in court cases with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Young, of Cornell’s Employment and Disabilities Institute, noted that the EEOC has dismissed 50% of cases. Of those remaining, 95% were decided in favor of the employers.

“There is a very high burden of proof on the individual to show they have a significant enough disability that interferes with their ability to work,” she said.

Complaints come primarily from people who were employed. The issue was termination. Most were people with back injuries, which is very hard to prove. “The ADA didn’t work,” Von Schrader said. “Employers realized they didn’t have to comply because people couldn’t prove that they had a disability.”

Solutions?

Horne of DOL’s Office of Disability Employment Policy still thinks that “Attitudes play a big part in this, of hat people with disabilities can do,” on the part of employers, the general population, and people with disabilities themselves. The attitude is that “they lack knowledge, they lack experience, and they lack skills.

People with disabilities themselves buy into that if they’ve been told all their lives, ‘You can’t do this, you can’t do that.’” He went on to say, “You can pass all the legislation you want, but difficult problems take time to solve. We can start by putting expectations in families that everyone can work, get mentoring, get internships, go on field trips, participate in society.”

Horne thinks it is different among young people with disabilities who have not been sheltered in segregated classrooms. Vocational rehabilitation and school systems are stressing transitional services to help students and their families plan for life after high school. Some go to vocational school, some might go on to college and some might go straight into the workforce. And some stay at home, either by choice or because their families are protecting them from society.

“I think it will take time to see results,” Horne said.

UNH economist Houtenville suggests that we follow the European system where disability services and vocational rehabilitation services work together. Early intervention would help, when people first apply for SSDI to see what could be done to help them return to work right away before they start the arduous process of qualifying for benefits.

And instead of all-or-nothing benefits, Houtenville says, it could be a percentage of disability such as the Veterans Administration or a 2-for-1 decrease in benefits for earnings.

He noted that the Social Security Administration is currently exploring various demonstration projects to test what steps could be taken to be more effective in assisting applicants and recipients who wish to attempt to return to work. One such project is to test the effects of allowing SSDI beneficiaries to work without total loss of benefits by reducing their monthly benefit

$1 for every $2 of earnings above a specified level. Another would include any type of services or other supports that are designed to reduce barriers to employment or enhance the employability of participants, such as employment services (i.e., structured job search), health care services, transportation assistance, training, enhanced forms of existing supports, or some combination of the above.

“Jobs have changed in 20 years,” Cornell’s Young says. There is an emphasis on multitasking, and she noted that employers might well have valid concerns about multitasking abilities among older people with disabilities.

The economy has changed in 20 years. Social Security has changed. People can keep their medical benefits for up to four years after they get a job, she said. One SSA incentive is that, “If you lose your job, you can be reinstated on SDI quickly. We need to get that info out–more public service announcements so people will understand.”

Young thinks this is a good time to prepare people with disabilities to enter the work force. “My hope is that as the economy improves, there will be labor shortages in the near future with our aging population, and people with disabilities will be able to fill some of those gaps.”

For further information, check out www.dol.gov/ODEP, www.ssa.gov, www.eeoc.gov,  www.ada.gov.

Tamar Asedo Sherman writes Action’s Working World column.