U.S. marks milestone as crisis deepens job situation

The Americans With Disabilities Act was a major turning point in opening large parts of U.S. society to disabled people, but three decades after its passage, disabled workers still face higher unemployment than other adults — a problem compounded by the coronavirus pandemic.

Today marks 30 years since the ADA was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush with wide bipartisan support. It prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in areas such as employment, transportation and public accommodations.

In practice, that’s meant everything from usable public bathrooms to seats in movie theaters and access to public schools.

“The historically dominant view was that it was an individual problem that each person or family had to cope with on their own,” said Douglas Kruse, an economist at Rutgers University who began using a wheelchair after a drunken driver crashed into him in 1990. “The ADA represented a shift in perspective that a lot of the problems with disability are more societal and environmental.”

That’s led to something simple but crucial: visibility.

“It’s not uncommon to see people with wheelchairs or blind people out doing what they need to do, or want to do, in cities or in restaurants,” said his wife, Lisa Schur, a political scientist at Rutgers who studies disability and employment. “Before the ADA, it was unusual. People would be stared at. Now it’s more accepted.”

The law was a hard-fought milestone that came after years of work from disabled people and their supporters, said Peter Berns, CEO of The Arc, which advocates for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Nevertheless, “the reality still is, people with disabilities are subject to pervasive discrimination in employment and many aspects of life, so the work of the ADA is not done.”

When it comes to employment, things were looking up in the booming June 2019 economy before the coronavirus hit. Still, the unemployment rate was nearly 8% — double that of other workers — even though a large majority said in surveys they can and want to work, Kruse said.

The situation has gotten worse in the pandemic. The country is reeling from record unemployment and layoffs as large sectors of the economy shut down to slow the spread of the coronavirus, but it’s even more pronounced among disabled people.

In June, the unemployment rate for disabled people rose to 16.5%, compared with 11% for workers without a disability, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.