Disability employment lags in US

20 years of the ADA

When President George H. W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990, it was hoped that it would transform how people with disabilities were treated when it came to employment.

However, 20 years later, a survey of 870 US-based respondents by Professor Lex Frieden of the University of Texas Health Science Center has revealed that "stereotypes still persist and these still limit people with disabilities. There is a serious lack of knowledge about the ADA, what are reasonable accommodations and who is covered under the law."

While 90 percent of those asked said that the quality of life for people with disabilities has improved greatly, especially regarding access to retail businesses and other public places, as well as in transportation, community and independent living, government services, education and telecommunications, certain prejudices are still said to exist and it was employment that was the major issue.

While respondents agreed that much of the ‘fear' that employers have had and myths about people with disabilities has been allayed, they stated that the law had not made meaningful progress in improving the quality of life for people with disabilities.

Still to be addressed

Some key findings from the survey included:

• 19 percent 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
• 21 percent of disabled working-age Americans had a job in the past year, versus 59 percent for those without disabilities
• 17 percent of people with disabilities have not graduated from high school, compared to 22 percent in 2000 and 40 percent in 1986 - the first year the survey was taken
• 48 percent of people with disabilities eat out at a restaurant twice a month, compared to 75 percent of those without disabilities
• 34 percent of disabled people say inadequate transportation is a problem, compared to 16 percent of those without disabilities, a gap that has widened five percentage points since 1986

Signed into law in 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act protects people with physical or mental disabilities from discrimination. A disability is defined as any condition that impairs one or more major life activities, and the law was expanded in 2008 to include chronic health conditions such as diabetes, epilepsy and cancer.

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