We first decided to focus a CloseUp on the topic of disability and employment when news of mass layoffs became unavoidable. We had to ask ourselves, if it's difficult for millions of able-bodied Americans to find and keep employment, what is the situation like for people with disabilities (PWD)?
As reported by Cornell University's Employment and Disability Institute, the 2008 population survey showed that only 17.6% of men and women who have a condition that limits their ability to work are in fact employed*. With proven discrimination against job seekers with disabilities and an increasingly competitive labor market we can imagine that the situation will only get tougher for people with disabilities.
Some of the issues faced by this group, and addressed by the research in this collection, include:
* Youth with disabilities transitioning from school into the workplace
* The effectivenes of one-stop centers and other government support systems
* The advantages and challenges for businesses employing PWD
* Strategies and tactics for employers to accommodate PWD
* The long term impact of un and under-employment on health and retirement benefits for PWD
* The adequacy of workers' compensation and disability prevention and prevalence of late-career disability
Like a lot of other research on important social issues, this work was widely scattered and required a bit of digging to unearth. Based on the number of resource lists and related links pages we found, service providers, community groups, advocates, and family members of people with disabilities are clearly looking for solid information to inform their direct service work, advocacy, and policy interventions.
We are pleased to bring this research into one easy-to-access collection for those people who are already immersed in the topic, as well as those of us who are pretty unfamiliar with this issue. We hope the collection is useful to both of these audiences, and everyone in between. It certainly has changed the way that we hear the most recent unemployment numbers.
Browse all research titles on this topic at:
http://www.issuelab.org/tag/disability_and_employment
IssueLab is an online publishing forum for nonprofit research. If you know of work that you would like to see included in the archive or you yourself do research for a nonprofit, please create a free account with IssueLab today.
http://www.issuelab.org/rc_accounts/start 
