ADA Was a Good Start—empower Takes Equality A Step Further

By Allsup

Twenty-seven years ago, President George H.W. Bush signed into law the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

At the historic signing, Bush 41 said, “… every man, woman and child with a disability can now pass though once-closed doors into a bright new era of equality, independence and freedom.”

For many people with disabilities, the ADA meant they now had the opportunity to fully participate in the workforce without discrimination.

But can they? Are those once-closed doors truly open today?

The answer is a qualified “maybe.” Let’s take a quick look at a June 2017 report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on the characteristics of people with disabilities in the workforce.

• In 2016, 17.9 percent of persons with a disability were employed. The employment-population ratio for those without a disability was 65.3 percent.
• For all educational groups, jobless rates for persons with a disability were higher than those for persons without a disability.
• The unemployment rate for persons with a disability was 10.5 percent, about the same as the previous year, but the rate for those without a disability declined to 4.6
• On the bright side, employed persons with a disability were more likely to be self-employed than those without a disability.

The numbers certainly could be better, but it is a start.

But do people with disabilities really want to go back to work? After all, aren’t most people drawing Social Security disability just slackers scamming the system?

The answer to the second question is an emphatic “no.”

After more than three decades helping people apply for disability, we at Allsup know the exact opposite is true. We’ve successfully represented more than 275,000 people, and most of them say they want to return to the workforce. Our most recent study indicates that 56 percent of our customers plan to return to work when they are medically able to do so.

That’s why we invested 33 years of SSDI experience and a lot of sweat into empower by Allsup.

empower by Allsup is a dual-purpose online software tool that helps you determine if you may qualify for SSDI, and then guides you through the application process.

Better yet, if you do qualify for SSDI benefits and your health later improves to the point you can go back to work, empower by Allsup also can help you do that. With easy online access, empower by Allsup gives you 24/7 support and a better chance for your SSDI application to be approved because we help you get it right the first time.

empower by Allsup truly ushers in a new era of equality.