Our Impact

“YTI loves working with the Office of the Chief Disability Officer on the DREAM Symposium. It is a great celebration of what people with disabilities bring to the workforce in New York State,” says Wendy Strobel Gower, executive director of ILR’s Yang-Tan Institute, commenting on the Albany-based event.

“We know people would like to work. We’ve been confirming that for ages. And many people are qualified, but they get stopped at the door,” says Susanne Bruyère, academic director of ILR’s Yang-Tan Institute on Employment and Disability, discussing research about people with disabilities and employment.

Studying two decades of data collected through the Empire State Poll, researchers have found that the cost of living dominates respondents’ key concerns, eclipsing other priorities, such as the environment.