“This year marks the 35^th anniversary of the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act and while we’ve made some progress, challenges remain and more effort is needed to ensure people with disabilities have equal opportunities in the workplace,” DiNapoli said. “Providing accommodations for workplace flexibility and encouraging employers to practice inclusive hiring can help improve employment outcomes for people with a disability. By championing inclusion, we create progress, prosperity and a stronger New York.”

In 2024, more than 2.5 million New Yorkers 16 and older had a disability, representing 15% of the working-age population. Due to the daily challenges facing people with disabilities, they are less likely to graduate high school or earn a bachelor’s degree and tend to have lower rates of labor force participation and employment. As a result, they earn far less on average than those without a disability. In 2024, one in four New Yorkers with a disability lived below the poverty line compared to one in five nationally.

Increases to Labor Force Participation Rate

Nationally, the labor force participation rate for people with a disability age 16 and over rose by five percentage points from 2019-2024, with the greatest gains between 2019 and 2021. Research has noted post-Covid labor market patterns differ from previous recessions in which employment recovery for people with disabilities lagged the nondisabled population, largely due to expanded remote work options for those who would have difficulty taking an in-person job, and a tighter labor market that encouraged more inclusive hiring.

State Policy Efforts

New York State has taken several steps to improve employment outcomes for people with disabilities. The state’s “Employment First” initiative requires state agencies to adopt plans to increase competitive integrated employment (CIE) in the workforce and encourages businesses to adopt inclusive hiring practices. The initial goals of Employment First in 2015 were to increase the employment rate of people with disabilities by 5% and reduce their poverty rate by 5% statewide. 2024 data show employment gains over the past ten years exceed this goal, though reductions in poverty have been more modest.

State agencies are required to develop an annual plan that details how they will improve the percentage of people with disabilities they hire, and the Chief Disability Officer is required to annually collect data from each agency and report on and evaluate the state’s progress on improving the employment rate of state employees with disabilities.

Other state programs that help overcome barriers to employment for people with disabilities include enacted legislative changes in 2022 to its Preferred Source Contracting Program that were intended to foster more inclusive jobs in the nonprofit sector and increase CIE. The state also runs specialized hiring programs within the state workforce for people with disabilities under Civil Service Law 55-b and 55-c. In addition, since 2015, businesses in New York that employ people with disabilities have been authorized to claim either a personal income tax or corporate franchise tax credit.

DiNapoli emphasized the importance of leveraging existing vocational programs, improving transportation services for jobs that cannot be done remotely, and educating employers about the benefits of hiring people with disabilities, measures that could significantly diminish barriers to employment for people with disabilities.

Report
Economic and Policy Insights – Workers with Disabilities Achieve Labor Force Gains, but Disparities Remain

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Employment Recovery is Slow for New Yorkers with Disabilities