October Disability Employment Data

This morning the US Department of Labor released employment data for October, including data on the employment, unemployment, and labor-force participation of people with disabilities. For people with disabilities age 16 to 64, the data show a labor force participation rate of 30.9%, a slight decline from 31.3% in October 2013. Overall, 4.9 million people with disabilities participated in the labor force, compared to 4.8 million in October 2013.

According to the National Trends in Disability Employment report, the employment-to-population ratio increased from 26.9 percent in October 2013 to 27.1 percent in October 2014 (up 0.7 percent; 0.2 percentage points) for working-age people with disabilities. The employment-to-population ratio, a key indicator, reflects the percentage of people who are working relative to the total population (the number of people working divided by the number of people in the total population multiplied by 100).