Unemployment And Poverty Remain Dramatically High Among Workers With Disabilitie

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Unemployment And Poverty Remain Dramatically High Among Workers With

Disabilities

There is a dramatic employment and poverty gap between working-age

people with disabilities and those without disabilities, according

to a new Cornell report.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071120111550.htm

The Third Annual Disability Status Report, the only report of its

kind in the nation, reveals that almost 38 percent of people with

disabilities are employed, compared with almost 80 percent of people

without disabilities. There are 22.3 million people with

disabilities of working age (21-64), which is 13 percent of the

total working-age population.

The researchers also found that Americans with disabilities are more

than twice as likely to live in poverty -- 25.4 percent of working-

age Americans with disabilities live in poverty compared with 9.5

percent of those without disabilities. People with disabilities

constitute 28 percent of the working-age American population living

in poverty.

The Disability Status Report was presented Nov. 7 on Capitol Hill in

Washington, D.C., by Cornell researchers in collaboration with the

American Association of People with Disabilities.

" The employment gap for people with disabilities is long-standing, "

said Houtenville, director of Cornell's Rehabilitation

Research and Training Center on Disability Demographics and

Statistics (StatsRRTC). " They are not participating in the recovery

from the 2001 recession. "

The StatsRRTC, funded by the National Institute on Disability and

Rehabilitation Research, is part of the Employment and Disability

Institute in Cornell's ILR School and the Department of Policy

Analysis and Management in Cornell's College of Human Ecology.

The reports, issued annually in the fall by Cornell, " fill a

pressing need for timely and relevant statistics about people with

disabilities, " added Houtenville. " We hope they will become an

annual event that policy-makers, advocates, the media and people

with disabilities across the United States will anticipate and

depend on. "

The report, which contains a range of statistics about people with

disabilities, including statistics by state, is available at

http://www.DisabilityStatistics.org.