Welfare reform study weighs priorities
at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies

The term “disabled worker” evokes a variety of images: the communications specialist down the hall at his computer terminal, in a wheelchair; a worker entering the rush hour bus, negotiating her entrance on crutches; a bagger at the supermarket who smiles shyly at you while ducking his head, just doing his job. But what about the colleague down the hall, who after decades of doing a job she enjoys, has found that her declining health has cornered her into accepting placement in a lower-paying job with fewer responsibilities? What happens to the successful salesman who is told that his hypertension and diabetes problems are forcing him into disability?

In current Census surveys, about 10 percent of the U.S. population reports work-limiting disabilities. Nationally, about three percent of the employed population is disabled. As the U.S. labor force ages, a higher percentage of workers will find themselves dealing with limiting disabilities, defined as certain musculoskeletal, internal systems and neurological conditions that prevent a worker from doing the type of job he or she wants to do or has done in the past.

In her new book, The Labor Market Experience of Workers with Disabilities: The ADA and Beyond, Julie Hotchkiss (right), associate professor of economics, examines the differences between the labor market experiences of workers with and without disabilities. Finding negligible change following the Americans with Disabilities Act, Hotchkiss examines the reasons for this low impact and offers policy recommendations to improve labor market experiences for the disabled beyond the provisions of the act.

Hotchkiss defines a worker’s labor market experience in terms of employment opportunities, compensation, job quality, job separation and job search. Her research centered on a regression analysis using a national sample of workers who reported limiting disabilities. The sample was drawn from the Current Population Surveys from 1981 through 2000 and supplemented by the Survey of Program Participation from 1987-1997.

She found the labor market experiences of disabled workers measurably lower than those of the non-disabled. “While disabled workers are making some progress in some dimensions,” said Hotchkiss, “the ADA does not seem to have had a dramatic impact in either a positive or negative direction.” Despite what this impact implies, Hotchkiss found that awareness of and compliance with the ADA are high. “Data suggests that the ADA was adopted in an environment which had already embraced its principles and mandates,” she said, “and that the labor market experience of disabled workers is defined by factors other than those corrected for by the ADA.”

Hotchkiss offers policy recommendations to enhance the labor force experiences of the disabled beyond the ADA. “Employment policies should include expanding or strengthening incentives for the disabled to enter the labor force. Wage differentials indicate that only 30-40 percent of the difference for the disabled can be explained by the observed characteristics of the workers themselves. Training should be provided that focuses in high-growth and higher-income occupations. Include a policy to provide assistance in screening and matching workers with appropriate jobs; all would capitalize on progress made by these workers and move them in the direction of greater labor market gains,” she reports.

The W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research published this book, released in March. The institute funds policy-relevant research “of a rigorous nature,” as stated on its Web site. Its mission includes “communicating new knowledge and scholarship effectively to a wide audience of policy makers, practitioners and researchers.”

“The book will have an impact when we get it in the hands of our policy makers,” Hotchkiss said. “If we can convince someone there’s a smarter way to spend our limited dollars, that’s the key to seeing labor force policy improvements for a population that is only expected to grow.”