U.S. Leading the Global Failure on Disability Employment

David Fazio, LinkedIn, January 1, 2017
More than 80% of U.S. Americans with disabilities are unemployed according to the U.S. Department of Labor, while the World Bank reports an 80 – 90 percent unemployment rate for persons with disabilities across Latin America, and the Caribbean. Despite 25 years of the Americans with Disabilities Act, disability rights law has mostly failed, not led to more jobs, and the employment rate for the disabled remains basically unchanged after a quarter-century. The 40 year old rhetoric about empathy, the acknowledgement, and acceptance of differences, and a stinging mantra of disability matters, is deeply rooted in the problem-solving mentality that we’ve all become so accustomed to. Unfortunately, the problem-solving mentality produces deficit-based thinking. Employees are trained to always be on the lookout for deficits, or weaknesses, anomalies in the workplace. Once discovered, problem-solving teaches us to uncover the root of that problem, and fix, or eliminate, it. Any way you look at it, disability translates into a problem to be solved. After all, the legal definition is an impairment due to a medical condition that limits one or more major life function.