“Governments throughout the world can no longer overlook the hundreds of millions of people with disabilities who are denied access to health, rehabilitation, support, education and employment, and never get the chance to shine. It is my hope that, beginning with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and now with the publication of the World Report on Disability, this century will mark a turning point for inclusion of people with disabilities in the lives of their societies”
- Professor Stephen W Hawking
In the United States, people with disabilities represent about one-fifth of the nation’s population with African Americans and American Indians representing the highest percentage of them (Fassinger: 2008). Many people living with disabilities not only have to overcome their daily struggles but also tend to face discrimination based on their race, gender or any other identity that has been a target in the US. To prevent the discrimination of people with disabilities on the basis of wage determination, hiring or firing, the American People with Disabilities Act (ADA) was created. Although ADA was signed by President Bush in 1990, it took effect in 1992. Since then, ADA has been both celebrated and criticized across this nation.
Using intersectionality as a way of understanding and analyzing the complexity of disability, we are going to analyze how it can become a social problem when affecting a vulnerable population in regards of their socioeconomic/immigration status, religion/ideologies, race/ethnicity, sex or gender. Next, we are going to address the Americans with Disabilities Act’s objectives, value premises, expectations, and target populations to then focus on the intended and/or unintended effects and the policy’s implications. Lastly, we will provide an alternative policy that more effectively addresses inequality within people with disabilities.
DISABILITY AS A SOCIAL PROBLEM
Throughout the world history, civilizations have attempted to explain the place of disability in the social order, from Ancient Greeks who believed disabled persons were not human and that they should be abandoned to die, until today where they have been isolated, segregated and discriminated against (Mackelprang, 2013; Fassinger, 2008). With respect to an individual, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) describes disability as (1) a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities of such individual; (2) a record of such an impairment; or (3) being regarded as having such an impairment.
In 2010, 19 percent of the US population had a disability (U.S. Census Bureau). Four years later, the Social Security Administration (SSA) 2014 Survey of Income and Program Participation reported an increase in population: 27.2 percent of the US population are living with disabilities and about 17.6 percent (55.2 million people) had a severe disability. Disability affects anyone, anywhere -from children to the elderly, from developed countries to developing ones. Unfortunately, people with disabilities are not excluded from one of the issues that have been affecting many societies: Discrimination.
Individuals with disabilities have reported been discriminated against in areas such as education, housing, transportation, employment, stereotypes, and the list goes on (Fassinger, 2008). Fassinger states that “gender and race effects also are present in this population, as employment rates are considerably lower for women and people of color with disabilities than for White men with disabilities” (2008:256). She also adds that one of greatest barriers to hiring individuals with disabilities employers face is the lack of inadequate job training and/or lack of skills.
THE POLICY OBJECTIVES
The ADA took effect in 1992 under the Bush administration with the hopes to prevent, protect and eliminate discrimination against people with physical or mental disabilities and to ensure they have the right to fully participate in all aspects of society despite been subjected to discrimination[1]. The policy requires that employers offer rational accommodations to employees with disabilities, such as wheelchair access. Other ADA objectives include but are not limited to:
Employers must provide reasonable accommodations to qualified applicants or employees. Employers with 15 or more employees must fulfill with this law. This title is regulated and enforced by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Prohibits discrimination against qualified individuals with disabilities in all programs, activities, and services of public entities. It clarifies the requirements of section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, for public transportation systems that receive federal financial assistance, and extends coverage to all public entities that provide public transportation, whether or not they receive federal financial assistance. This title is regulated and enforced by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Title III: Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability by Public Accommodations and in Commercial Facilities
Prohibits private places of public accommodation from discriminating against individuals with disabilities. Requires public accommodations to remove barriers in existing buildings where it is easy to do so without much difficulty or expense, and also requires that they take steps necessary to communicate effectively with customers with vision, hearing, and speech disabilities. This title is also regulated and enforced by the U.S. Department of Justice.[2]
THE ADA EFFECTS
Some of the positive effects of the Americans with Disabilities Act have been the public awareness and inclusion, more access to buildings thanks to the installations of wheelchair ramps, as well as having handicap accessible restrooms (US Commission on Civil Rights). By making sure employers meet these standards, ADA has opened doors to employment for more Americans with disabilities, especially to those who could not have this type of access before the policy was implemented. On the other hand, the National Bureau of Economic Research reports that, between 1992-1997, the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission (EEOC) received more than 90,000 discrimination complaints based on wrongful termination (almost 63 percent), failure to provide adequate accommodations (29 percent), and hiring violations (10 percent). In the same way, Jacobsen et al., (2012) report that “substance abusing employees cost employers millions in lost productivity, measured by increased absenteeism, workplace accidents, and healthcare costs” (p. 468). Another downside is that government-related disability costs went up in during the same years; as a result, businesses hesitated to make the sort of accommodations that would have enabled large numbers of people with disabilities to become employed (Berkowitz: 2017). Therefore, unemployment rates for employees who have disabilities are almost double than people without disabilities.
Last but not least, because disabilities are often complex, some ADA impairments are included or excluded. This is the case of a person infected with HIV, which is considered a disability, but not obesity or a concussion, for the most times. Other specific conditions that are not considered to be impairments under the act and that are excluded from coverage are: Homosexuality, bisexuality, Transvestism, Transsexualism, “Gender identity disorders” not resulting from physical impairments, Compulsive gambling, Kleptomania, Pyromania, Exhibitionism, Pedophilia, Voyeurism, , Sexual behavior disorders, Common personality traits, and Psychoactive substance use disorders resulting from current illegal use of drugs.[3]
IMPLICATIONS
Patricia Hill Collins taught us that in order to understand and analyze the complexity in the world, in people, and in human experiences and how they are not been shaped by a single axis of social division, we ought to draw upon intersectionality as an analytic tool (2016). Before ADA came into action, Berkowitz (2017) states that the Republican party and President Bush “viewed civil rights for people with disabilities as ideologically compatible with the Republican approach toward government.” The George Washington University Professor of History and Public Policy and Public Administration and Director of the Program in History and Public Policy claims that Bush viewed the ADA as a force of integration, “not as a form of special treatment that amounted to segregation,” as Berkowitz (2017) expands by offering the ‘blind bus driver’ metaphor: “Even if blind people were otherwise qualified for the job, they would make bad bus drivers. Regulators had, therefore, to discriminate among groups of the handicapped in ways that had no clear analog in other civil rights statutes.”
Nowadays, it seems that we are still experiencing how policymakers fail at addressing social policies as ADA using the intersectionality lens instead of focusing on measuring one person’s experience as the representation of a group, a community, a race, a gender. By using an intersectionality approach, they would understand that “a single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete” - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
THE ALTERNATIVE POLICIES
One of the ways policymakers have tried to fight the unintended effects of ADA is by implementing programs that provide tax credits to for-profit business/organizations that hire individuals with developmental disabilities. For example, Workers with Disabilities Tax Credit (WDTC) program in New York offers a maximum tax credit of $5,000 for full-time employment (30 hours or more per week), based on 15% of the individual’s wages paid after January 1, 2015 for a period of employment no less than six months; and $2,500 for part-time employment (between 8 hours and 30 hours per week), based on 10% of the individual’s wages paid after January 1, 2015 for a period of employment no less than six months. Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, the Work Opportunity Tax Credit program allows the employer to claim a tax credit of up to 40% of the first $6,000 of first-year wages after certification is received from the appropriate government agencies and the employee has worked for at least 120 hours.
In the same way, in order to make sure more people with disabilities are being employed, President Obama signed Executive Order 13548—Increasing Federal Employment of Individuals with Disabilities, on the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act. This directive calls on federal departments and agencies to increase the recruitment, hiring, and retention of people with disabilities.
Works Cited
Berkowitz, Eduard. 2017. “George Bush and the Americans with Disabilities Act.” Social Welfare History Project. Retrieved November 23, 2018. http://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/recollections/george-bush-and-the-americans-with-disabilities-act/
DeLeire, Thomas. 2000. The Unintended Consequences of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Labor. 23(1). Regulation. Pp. 21-24. Retrieved November 26, 2018
Fassinger, Ruth E. 2008. “Workplace Diversity and Public Policy: Challenges and Opportunities for Psychology.” American Psychologist. 63(4). Pp. 252-268.
Jacobson, Jodi; Sacco, Paul. 2012. Employee Assistance Program Services for Alcohol and Other Drug Problems: Implications for Increased Identification and Engagement in Treatment. American Journal on Addictions. 21(5). Pp. 468-475.
Mackelprang, Romel. 2013. “Disabilities, Health Care and Illness, Populations and Practice Settings, Social Justice and Human Rights.” Encyclopedia of Social Work. Oxford University. Accessed November 24, 2018. http://oxfordre.com/socialwork/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199975839.001.0001/acrefore-9780199975839-e-541
[1] 42 USC 12101: Findings and purpose. From Title 42-THE PUBLIC HEALTH AND WELFARE. CHAPTER 126-EQUAL OPPORTUNITY FOR INDIVIDUALS WITH DISABILITIES. http://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:42%20section:12101%20edition:prelim
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