[acb-hsp] [leadership] HELP Committee Releases Report, Recommendations on Disability Employment

[peter altschul]

 ---- Original Message ------
From: "Eric Bridges" <ebridges at acb.org
Subject: [leadership] HELP Committee Releases 
Report,Recommendations on Disability Employment
Date sent: Tue, 17 Jul 2012 11:22:52 -0400

Please read  the press release from Senator Harkin.



Eric



From: Harkinintern2 (HELP Committee) 
[mailto:Harkinintern2_help at help.senate.gov] On Behalf Of 
Imparato, Andrew (HELP Committee)
Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2012 11:11 AM
To: Imparato, Andrew (HELP Committee)
Subject: HELP Committee Releases Report, Recommendations on 
Disability Employment



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July 16, 2012

 
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<http://harkin-press.enews.senate.gov/mail/util.cfm?mailaction=cl
ickthru&gpiv=2100091906.6693.170&gen=1&mailing_linkid=70834> 
Description: Image removed by sender.  USSenator Tom Harkin of 
Iowa







FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Justine Sessions/Kate Frischmann


July 16, 2012

(202) 224-3254

HELP Committee Releases Report, Recommendations on Disability 
Employment

WASHINGTON—Today, Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), Chairman of the 
Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and 
the Senate author of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, 
released a report 
<http://harkin-press.enews.senate.gov/mail/util.cfm?mailaction=cl
ickthru&gpiv=2100091906.6693.170&gen=1&mailing_linkid=70835>  
detailing the current state of employment for adults with 
disabilities, and describing policy recommendations that would 
help to increase labor force participation.  Following a series 
of bipartisan HELP Committee hearings to explore the persistently 
low employment rate of people with disabilities, this report 
outlines the next steps to achieve Chairman Harkin’s goal of 
raising the number of Americans with disabilities in the labor 
force to six million by 2015.  Harkin’s report comes a day 
after Delaware Governor Jack Markell announced 
<http://harkin-press.enews.senate.gov/mail/util.cfm?mailaction=cl
ickthru&gpiv=2100091906.6693.170&gen=1&mailing_linkid=70836>  
that he will make expanding employment for Americans with 
disabilities the defining initiative of his new National 
Governors Association chairmanship.

“As someone who has sought to expand rights and opportunities 
for children and adults with disabilities for almost four 
decades, I am convinced America is ready to address this next 
great barrier of disability employment,” Harkin wrote in the 
report.  “At this time we are seeing a convergence of strong 
bipartisan leadership from the public and private sectors with 
the coming of age of a new generation of young adults with 
disabilities who have high expectations for themselves and have 
the education and skills to succeed in the modern workplace.  If 
we make this issue the priority that it deserves to be, in the 
next few years we will see a real change in employment outcomes 
for Americans with disabilities.

“…My hope is for this report to support and encourage 
bipartisan leadership in the public and private sectors that will 
have a measurable positive impact on employment of Americans with 
disabilities in 2012 and beyond… Our country showed bold 
bipartisan leadership in 1990 when it passed the ADA and America 
is a better place because of its implementation.  It is now time 
again to show the same kind of leadership and open wide the doors 
to better jobs and careers as well as create an accessible 
pathway out of deep poverty and into the mainstream of the 
American middle class for the more than 20 million working age 
American adults with disabilities.”

As the first generation of Americans who have grown up under the 
ADA approach adulthood and wounded warriors return from Iraq and 
Afghanistan, our country has a unique opportunity to address the 
issue of disability employment.  In recent years, public- and 
private-sector employers have gotten more serious about growing 
the disability workforce, prompting both President Obama and the 
U.S.  Chamber of Commerce to set specific goals for welcoming 
people with disabilities into the labor force.  Companies like 
Walgreens, Lowe’s, and Best Buy have led the way in the private 
sector.  As the economic recovery moves forward, Chairman Harkin 
will continue to work to ensure that Americans with disabilities 
are not left out of opportunities to earn a living and join the 
middle class.

Through several hearings and extensive staff research, the 
Committee found that:

*	There is no evidence that employment outcomes for people 
with disabilities as a whole have improved since 1990, and 
participation rates have been persistently lower than for 
people without disabilities.  In June 2012, just 32.1 
percent of working age people with disabilities were 
participating in the labor force, compared with 77.7 percent 
of those without disabilities.
*	Between July 2008 and December 2010, workers with 
disabilities left the labor force at a rate five times 
greater than workers without a disability: 2.1 percent of 
the non-disability workforce, versus 10.4 percent of the 
disability workforce, left the labor force over that period