Which Jobs Do U.S. Workers With Disabilities Hold? Disability by Occupation, 2016–2020

In 2020, approximately 21.5 million employed U.S. adults aged 18–64 had some form of disability. Yet while 75.8% of people that age without a disability had jobs, only 38.4% of those with a disability did. People with disabilities want much the same jobs as everyone else, but meet barriers — less access to training and education, discrimination, and limited transportation — that shape which jobs they hold.

CDC used the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), a telephone survey, to see how disability varies across 22 major occupation groups, using 2016–2020 data from 35 states and Guam that asked about work. Workers counted as having a disability if they answered yes to any of six questions — on hearing, vision, cognition, mobility, self-care and independent living. The analysis covered 395,141 employed adults.

Who reported a disability

14.8% of employed adults aged 18–64 reported a disability. Cognitive disability was most common (7.0%) and self-care disability least (1.0%).

• All types were more common among workers without a high school education, Hispanic workers, veterans, those without health coverage, and those with household income under $25,000.
• The youngest workers, aged 18–24, had the highest rates of vision (3.6%), cognitive (13.9%) and independent-living (4.4%) disability.
• Women reported slightly more than men: any disability 15.5% vs 14.1%; cognitive 7.8% vs 6.3%; mobility 5.4% vs 3.9%.

By occupation

Unadjusted, disability was most common in food preparation and serving (24.7%) and personal care and service (22.8%), and least in architecture and engineering (8%). After adjusting for age, sex, race and ethnicity, and education:

Some disability types clustered in particular fields:

• vision — food preparation and serving (4.2%)
• mobility — personal care and service (6.0%)
• cognitive — arts, design, entertainment, sports and media (10.8%)
• hearing — installation, maintenance and repair (4.2%), construction and extraction (3.8%), and production, protective service, and farming, fishing and forestry (3.5% each)

What might explain the patterns

• Service jobs. More workers with disabilities in personal care and food service might reflect better workplace programs, people choosing jobs by perceived skill level, or less competition for these lower-paid jobs — mean annual wages of $29,450–$33,620, against $58,260 across all occupations.
• Young workers. Higher disability among the youngest workers mainly reflects cognitive disability. Diagnosis of conditions such as autism, ADHD and intellectual disability has risen, especially in children and adolescents, and early diagnosis and support may help young people move into work. Or older workers without cognitive disabilities may simply stay employed longer.
• Hearing. Many jobs in the high-hearing-loss groups involve loud processes and equipment, and hearing loss may not be a barrier to entering them. Hearing conservation and hearing protection matter in these fields.

Widening the options

Accessibility improvements and training tailored to employees with disabilities could open a wider range of occupations. The U.S. Department of Labor supports employers through the Employer Assistance and Resource Network on Disability Inclusion and the Partnership on Employment and Accessible Technology. More home-based, part-time and computer-based jobs have widened options, and better access to computer technology could open more skilled, higher-wage work. According to the Job Accommodation Network, about half of job accommodations cost employers nothing, and three-fourths were very or extremely effective.

Limits: the data are self-reported and from one point in time, so they cannot show whether a disability was caused by work; occupation groups are broad; part-time and full-time workers could not be separated; and results cover 35 states and Guam, not the whole nation.

Sources

Based on Shockey TM, Fox K, Zhao G, Hollis N, "Prevalence of Disability by Occupation Group — United States, 2016–2020," MMWR Vol. 72, No. 20, CDC, with a passage cut off in the imported copy completed from the same report in PubMed Central (PMC10205170); a work of the United States government in the public domain.