Topics covered include changes in the nature of work, rising health care expenditures, changing disability population, the American with Disabilities Act, social security disability insurance.
The future of disability in America will depend on how well the U.S. prepares for and manages the demographic, fiscal, and technological developments that will unfold during the next two to three decades. Building upon two prior studies from the Institute of Medicine (the 1991 Institute of Medicine's report Disability in America and the 1997 report Enabling America), The Future of Disability in America examines both progress and concerns about continuing barriers that limit the independence, productivity, and participation in community life of people with disabilities. This book offers a comprehensive look at a wide range of issues, including the prevalence of disability across the lifespan; disability trends the role of assistive technology; barriers posed by health care and other facilities with inaccessible buildings, equipment, and information formats; the needs of young people moving from pediatric to adult health care and of adults experiencing premature aging and secondary health problems; selected issues in health care financing (e.g., risk adjusting payments to health plans, coverage of assistive technology); and the organizing and financing of disability-related research. The Future of Disability in America is an assessment of both principles and scientific evidence for disability policies and services. This book's recommendations propose steps to eliminate barriers and strengthen the evidence base for future public and private actions to reduce the impact of disability on individuals, families, and society.
Nearly three decades after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), people with disabilities continue to be significantly underrepresented in the American Labor force. This loss of talent to U.S. organizations and restriction of opportunities for millions of workers have broader implications for civil society. People denied access to the workforce are limited in their ability to contribute to the economy and to their communities, heightening their reliance on public support systems and reducing the number of people participating in community life. This LERA volume focuses on the employment of individuals with disabilities. Its purpose is to review the current employment situation for Americans with disabilities, place it in the context of the U.S. regulatory system, describe current issues, identify ways that employers are approaching possible remediation of these issues, and identify emerging concerns and opportunities. A multi-disciplinary team of researchers and practitioners provide a broad-based overview of related issues, approaches, and opportunities. This volume will be useful to a wide array of professionals, including labor and employment relations attorneys and specialists; human resource, diversity and inclusion, and equal employment opportunity professionals; as well as organizational leaders, managers, and supervisors who are seeking to improve employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities both here and abroad.
Spread out over many years and many different publications, the late author and activist Marta Russell wrote a number of groundbreaking and insightful essays on the nature of disability and oppression under capitalism. In this volume, Russell’s various essays are brought together in one place in order to provide a useful and expansive resource to those interested in better understanding the ways in which the modern phenomenon of disability is shaped by capitalist economic and social relations. The essays range in analysis from the theoretical to the topical, including but not limited to: the emergence of disability as a “human category” rooted in the rise of industrial capitalism and the transformation of the conditions of work, family, and society corresponding thereto; a critique of the shortcomings of a purely “civil rights approach” to addressing the persistence of disability oppression in the economic sphere, with a particular focus on the legacy of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990; an examination of the changing position of disabled people within the overall system of capitalist production utilizing the Marxist economic concepts of the reserve army of the unemployed, the labor theory of value, and the exploitation of wage-labor; the effects of neoliberal capitalist policies on the living conditions and social position of disabled people as it pertains to welfare, income assistance, health care, and other social security programs; imperialism and war as a factor in the further oppression and immiseration of disabled people within the United States and globally; and the need to build unity against the divisive tendencies which hide the common economic interest shared between disabled people and the often highly-exploited direct care workers who provide services to the former.
The fields of special needs education and disability in Singapore have witnessed significant changes and developments especially during the past two decades in the wake of Singapore's evolution towards its vision as an inclusive society. This collection of chapters presents information, knowledge, research, and perspectives across a wide range of topics and issues that are relevant to the lives of persons with disabilities, their families and their communities. This book offers a compendium of local knowledge and research on special needs and disability and integrates international literature, exemplary practices, and innovative ideas for considering future directions and efforts for the fields of special needs education and disability in Singapore.
This report is based on the public hearing on the Americans with Disabilities Act which the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights held on November 12-13, 1998 to "investigate how the ADA was accomplishing its objectives of ensuring equality, independence, and freedom for people with disabilities"--P iii
By one reading, things look pretty good for Americans today: the country is richer than ever before and the unemployment rate is down by half since the Great Recession—lower today, in fact, than for most of the postwar era. But a closer look shows that something is going seriously wrong. This is the collapse of work—most especially among America’s men. Nicholas Eberstadt, a political economist who holds the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute, shows that while “unemployment” has gone down, America’s work rate is also lower today than a generation ago—and that the work rate for US men has been spiraling downward for half a century. Astonishingly, the work rate for American males aged twenty-five to fifty-four—or “men of prime working age”—was actually slightly lower in 2015 than it had been in 1940: before the War, and at the tail end of the Great Depression. Today, nearly one in six prime working age men has no paid work at all—and nearly one in eight is out of the labor force entirely, neither working nor even looking for work. This new normal of “men without work,” argues Eberstadt, is “America’s invisible crisis.” So who are these men? How did they get there? What are they doing with their time? And what are the implications of this exit from work for American society? Nicholas Eberstadt lays out the issue and Jared Bernstein from the left and Henry Olsen from the right offer their responses to this national crisis. For more information, please visit http://menwithoutwork.com.
The United States is in the midst of a major demographic shift. In the coming decades, people aged 65 and over will make up an increasingly large percentage of the population: The ratio of people aged 65+ to people aged 20-64 will rise by 80%. This shift is happening for two reasons: people are living longer, and many couples are choosing to have fewer children and to have those children somewhat later in life. The resulting demographic shift will present the nation with economic challenges, both to absorb the costs and to leverage the benefits of an aging population. Aging and the Macroeconomy: Long-Term Implications of an Older Population presents the fundamental factors driving the aging of the U.S. population, as well as its societal implications and likely long-term macroeconomic effects in a global context. The report finds that, while population aging does not pose an insurmountable challenge to the nation, it is imperative that sensible policies are implemented soon to allow companies and households to respond. It offers four practical approaches for preparing resources to support the future consumption of households and for adapting to the new economic landscape.
The Routledge Handbook of Disability Studies takes a multidisciplinary approach to disability and provides an authoritative and up-to-date overview of the main issues in the field around the world today. Adopting an international perspective and consisting entirely of newly commissioned chapters arranged thematically, it surveys the state of the discipline, examining emerging and cutting edge areas as well as core areas of contention. Divided in five sections, this comprehensive handbook covers: different models and approaches to disability how key impairment groups have engaged with disability studies and the writings within the discipline policy and legislation responses to disability studies and to disability activism disability studies and its interaction with other disciplines, such as history, philosophy and science and technology studies disability studies and different life experiences, examining how disability and disability studies intersects with ethnicity, sexuality, gender, childhood and ageing. Containing chapters from an international selection of leading scholars, this authoritative handbook is an invaluable reference for all academics, researchers and more advanced students in disability studies and associated disciplines such as sociology, health studies and social work.
To what extent are people with disabilities fully included in economic, political and social life? People with disabilities have faced a long history of exclusion, stigma and discrimination, but have made impressive gains in the past several decades. These gains include the passage of major civil rights legislation and the adoption of the 2006 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This book provides an overview of the progress and continuing disparities faced by people with disabilities around the world, reviewing hundreds of studies and presenting new evidence from analysis of surveys and interviews with disability leaders. It shows the connections among economic, political and social inclusion, and how the experience of disability can vary by gender, race and ethnicity. It uses a multidisciplinary approach, drawing on theoretical models and research in economics, political science, psychology, disability studies, law and sociology.