Understanding Employment Roadblocks
As a partner in a $12 million initiative to improve employment for New Yorkers with disabilities, ILR's Employment and Disability Institute will contribute to building a five-year strategic plan to close the employment gap faced by more than a million state residents with disabilities.
"Part of the challenge is understanding the roadblocks to employment," said Thomas Golden, EDI associate director and a project co-principal investigator.
"We have data, but we don't really have a robust picture of the experiences of New Yorkers who are disabled as they try to go back to work," he said.
The "New York Makes Work Pay" project will help uncover the details of people's experiences, Golden said, and will build understanding of the critical interventions needed to support the myriad of stakeholders in the employment process.
Governor David Paterson, in a letter of support for the grant, described "New York Makes Work Pay" as a "comprehensive, coordinated system of identifying and removing barriers for New Yorkers living with disabilities."
Golden described the employment process for people with disabilities as a four-part equation.
First is ensuring that New Yorkers with disabilities have the information needed to make informed choices about going to work, he said. A network of service providers equipped with cutting-edge practices to support the path to employment is also needed.
Equipping employers and industry to manage the diversity posed by disability and help them see people with disabilities as an untapped source of talent is also part of the process, he said.
Finally, Golden said, effective public policy is required that supports and provides incentives to reinforce these important relationships.
One of the key areas to be addressed by the project will be health care, he said.
"Some people worry returning to work could jeopardize their health care. The rules governing many public entitlements are so complex, many decide to not take the risk," Golden said.
A website and other tools created through the project will help publicize programs and incentives that allow people with disabilities to return to work without sacrificing health care; many unemployed New Yorkers who are disabled receive health care through Medicaid and Medicare.
"New Yorkers with disabilities will have the information they need to make an informed decision about going back to work and the knowledge they need to maneuver public programs," Golden said.
"Service providers will be equipped with cutting-edge practices. Employers and industry will understand the incentives that support people with disabilities who are returning to work."
More than one million state residents between the ages of 21 and 64 have one or more disabilities, according to the 2007 Disability Status Report, published by EDI.
People with disabilities comprise 12 percent of the total population ages 21 to 64. Thirty-four percent are employed, compared with an employment rate of 78 percent for people ages 21 to 64 who do not have disabilities.
The annual median 2007 income of a household including a person with a disability in that age group was $38,800, according to the report. Annual median income for similar household, which did not include a person with disabilities, was $66,100.
"New York Makes Work Pay," sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service's, Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services, began this year. Partners include the New York State Most Integrated Settings Coordinating Council's Employment Committee, the New York State Office of Mental Health, Syracuse University's Burton Blatt Institute and Cornell's Employment and Disability Institute.