Nationwide, the number of employed people with disabilities is at an all-time high since federal officials began keeping records.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, 22.5% of people with disabilities were employed in 2023. That’s a 1.2 percentage point increase from the previous year and the highest rate since 2008, when the bureau began collecting data on disability employment.
The findings come from an annual report released this month based on information collected last year through the Current Population Survey, a monthly survey of about 60,000 households about U.S. employment and unemployment.
ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW
Despite these gains, employment rates for people with disabilities remained around one-third of the general population, and unemployment rates for people with disabilities remained much higher than the rest of the population, regardless of education level.
“Across all age groups, people with disabilities are much less likely to be employed than people without disabilities,” the Department of Labor found.
The data shows that disabled people are almost twice as likely to work part-time as others, a higher proportion of them are self-employed, and more likely to work in the service sector and are “much less likely” to hold managerial or professional jobs.
Overall, about three-quarters of people with disabilities were considered “out of the labor force” and the majority of them did not want to work.
Read more stories like this: Sign up for Disability Scoop’s free email newsletter to receive the latest developmental disability news straight to your inbox.