DoD photo
In 1988, Congress decreed October National Disability Employment Awareness Month, and put the U.S. Department of Labor in charge of organizing and coordinating events that bring attention to the importance of hiring disabled people.
That means I’m supposed to be writing about how hiring disabled people is the right thing to do and also makes good business sense. Hiring disabled people is good for the bottom line because, a whole bunch of statistics show, that we are loyal employees who show up to work more steadily, work harder, and change jobs less than our non-disabled counterparts. If I write stories driving these points home, maybe it will help change the sad fact that in 2016, only about 23 percent of the more than 20 million non-institutionalized disabled persons age 21 to 64 in the United States were employed full-time for a full-year, according to the Labor Department.
But I’m not comfortable carrying that message. That part about how, statistically at least, disabled folks are loyal and hard workers is probably true. But why is that so? I think it’s because it’s always been so damn hard for disabled folks to find a decent job that when we think we finally found one we hang on for dear life, even if the job’s not that decent. So what that talking point says to employers is, “Disabled people make good employees because they’re desperate.” But I wouldn’t want to be hired with that expectation in mind. I’m not going to work twice as hard as my non-disabled counterparts that are paid the same amount because if I do, that means I’m being paid half as much as them. Screw that.
Hiring me is not necessarily good for business—or at least not for business as usual.
I also don’t believe hiring me is necessarily good for business, or at least not for business as usual. I can’t physically endure a 40-hour work week and daily commute. I ride around in a motorized wheelchair and if it breaks I’ll probably have to drop everything that day and go get it fixed. That doesn’t mean that I, and all the disabled folk in that boat with me, don’t have valuable talents to offer. Our talents are many. But any enterprise that wants to access those talents will have to be accommodating, flexible, and creative. If they’re laser focused on making a beeline to the nearest pot of gold, having me aboard will probably slow them down.
For a lot of disabled folks, even considering employment is a luxury. What if they don’t have the same access to public transportation as everyone else in their community? What if there is no public transportation at all? What about people who have no choice for receiving comprehensive health coverage but to rely on Medicaid, which requires them to stay in poverty? For all these folks, engaging in traditional employment is a major undertaking and a significant risk.
I’m not comfortable carrying the message that seriously reversing that enormous unemployment rate for disabled people requires no concessions from capitalism other than a change in “awareness.” It requires investments in infrastructure, a radical restructuring of public support programs and a whole lot more.
The message I am comfortable carrying? Singular devotion to quarterly profits leaves behind millions of disabled people and always will.