But W. Roy Grizzard, assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Labor (DoL), Office of Disability Employment Policy, says that in a DoL survey, more than 50 percent of all employers surveyed said "there is no cost in accommodating a person with a disability. And out of those that do have a cost, the [one-time] cost is typically $600."
Managers often are the obstacle, says Linda Hollinshead, partner in the employment-services division of the Philadelphia-based law firm Wolf Block. "One of the obstacles is that if employers get an inkling of a medical issue, they'll assume the person is not qualified," says Hollinshead. "They should be focusing on the functions of the job and figure out if the person can do it with or without reasonable accommodations."
Providing for simple accommodations can help increase the number of people with disabilities who are employed. In 2006, the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey reported that 37.7 percent of people with disabilities were employed, compared with 79.7 percent of people who did not have a disability. Also, in 2006, the percentage of working-age people with a disability working full time for the year was 21.7 percent while the percentage of working-age people without a disability working full time for the year was 56.6 percent. Furthermore, the poverty rate among people with disabilities was 25.3 percent in 2006, 16 percent higher than the poverty rate for those without a disability.
"We haven't made more progress because we have not had more advocates," says Charles Dey, chairman, national EmployAbility Partnership for the National Organization on Disability. Advocates are managers who make it their business to give an applicant with a disability the same chance they would give an applicant without a disability. Advocates also are companies that make it part of their mission to hire people with disabilities.
"That's what's going to change the hiring of people with disabilities in America … You need the corporate leadership," says Dey.
"As soon as the word 'accommodations' comes up, employers see visions of large dollar signs when the reality is that an accommodation can be simple and not expensive at all, depending on the disability," says Mike Helman, executive director of Learning Disabilities of America (LDA).
LDA matches employers with qualified recruits who have learning disabilities. After discussing in which industry the person with a disability wants to work, Helman and others at LDA cold call the employer and pitch the person to the company's recruiters.
"When people think of people with disabilities, they have a predetermined idea of what that means, and a lot of times that doesn't match reality," says Helman.
For example, he recently helped a female who had a learning disability get a job at a posh department store's cosmetics counter. She had a problem with math, though, and part of the job required that she balance the register at the end of her shift. LDA solved the problem by redesigning the form the employee used to balance the register. With the recreated form, she had no problems, says Helman.
"That's an example of an accommodation that cost the employer nothing," says Helman. "I think there's a lot of misunderstanding. You don't have to hire someone just because they have a disability. They have to be able to do the job and the employer has to provide reasonable accommodations for them to do the job."
Click here to read the entire American Community Survey on people with disabilities.
