Did the Employment of People with Disabilities Decline in the 1990s, and was the ADA Responsible? A Replication and Robustness Check of Acemoglu and Angrist (2001) - Research Brief

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) (P.L. 101-336) gives civil rights protections to persons with disabilities similar to those provided on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, age, and religion. Title I of the ADA prohibits discrimination in employment practices by private employers, state and local governments, employment agencies, and labor unions for employers with 15 or more employees.1 The ADA requires employers to offer “reasonable accommodation” to employees with disabilities and prohibits discrimination in hiring, promotion, and firing. The goal of the ADA is to level the playing field in employment for people with disabilities and better integrate working age people with disabilities into the labor market. In 2001, Daron Acemoglu and Joshua Angrist published their seminal paper, Consequences of Employment Protection? The Case of the Americans with Disabilities Act. They examined employment time-trends among workers with disabilities from 1988 (shortly before the passage of the ADA) to 1996, using data from the March Current Population Survey (CPS), to determine whether the ADA influenced the employment of people with disabilities. Their key finding was that the CPS data showed a post-ADA decline in employment among young men and women with disabilities. Controlling for other employment factors, including the increased number of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) recipients, they concluded that the ADA led to reduced employment for younger workers with disabilities. Their results were less clear cut for older workers. They cited the cost to employers of compliance with the ADA and fear of lawsuits as potential causes of the observed decline in employment. Acemoglu and Angrist’s (2001) emphasis on the ADA as a deterrent to increased employment triggered a lively debate about whether the ADA or other factors were responsible. More fundamentally, some researchers questioned whether this decline was real or merely an artifact of inadequacies in the CPS data used to quantify employment trends among people with disabilities. In Houtenville and Burkhauser (2004), the research summarized in this brief, we address the key questions: (a) did the employment of people with disabilities decline in the 1990s? and (b) was the ADA responsible for the decline? The evidence we present, described below, leads us to conclude that the employment rate did decline, but that the decline was not a consequence of the ADA

Galaxy Formation Spanning Cosmic History

Over the past several decades, galaxy formation theory has met with significant successes. In order to test current theories thoroughly we require predictions for as yet unprobed regimes. To this end, we describe a new implementation of the Galform semi-analytic model of galaxy formation. Our motivation is the success of the model described by Bower et al. in explaining many aspects of galaxy formation. Despite this success, the Bower et al. model fails to match some observational constraints and certain aspects of its physical implementation are not as realistic as we would like. The model described in this work includes substantially updated physics, taking into account developments in our understanding over the past decade, and removes certain limiting assumptions made by this (and most other) semi-analytic models. This allows it to be exploited reliably in high-redshift and low mass regimes. Furthermore, we have performed an exhaustive search of model parameter space to find a particular set of model parameters which produce results in good agreement with a wide range of observational data (luminosity functions, galaxy sizes and dynamics, clustering, colours, metal content) over a wide range of redshifts. This model represents a solid basis on which to perform calculations of galaxy formation in as yet unprobed regimes.Comment: MNRAS accepted. Extended version (with additional figures and details of implementation) is available at http://www.galform.or

Employment among Working-Age People with Disabilities: What the Latest Data Can Tell Us

We review the recent evidence on the employment experiences of the working-age population with disabilities gained from four large representative samples of the United States population: the Current Population Survey-Annual Social and Economic Supplement, American Community Survey, the National Health Interview Survey, and the Survey of Income and Program Participation linked to Social Security Administration records. Using a consistent conceptualization of disability we put the employment patterns of the working-age population with disabilities captured in these data within a coherent framework. We conclude that the patterns we find cannot be explained by differences in underlying impairment across time, states or within these populations at a given time or place. Rather we argue that the work environment, rehabilitation opportunities, and individual responses to these external factors by those with a given level of impairment are likely to be as important in explaining these employment patterns as differences as health-related factors

2006 Progress Report on the Economic Well-Being of Working Age People with Disabilities

This progress report on the prevalence rate, employment, poverty, and household income of working-age people with disabilities (ages 21-64) uses data from the 2006 and earlier Current Population Surveys – Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS-ASES, a.k.a. Annual Demographic Survey, Income Supplement, and March CPS). The CPS is the only data set that provides continuously-defined yearly information on the working-age population with disabilities since 198

Human well-being and in-work benefits : a randomized controlled trial

Many politicians believe they can intervene in the economy to improve people’s lives. But can they? In a social experiment carried out in the United Kingdom, extensive in-work support was randomly assigned among 16,000 disadvantaged people. We follow a sub-sample of 3,500 single parents for 5 ensuing years. The results reveal a remarkable, and troubling, finding. Long after eligibility had ceased, the treated individuals had substantially lower psychological well- being, worried more about money, and were increasingly prone to debt. Thus helping people apparently hurt them. We discuss a behavioral framework consistent with our findings and reflect on implications for policy

2008 Progress Report on the Economic Well-Being of Working Age People with Disabilities

This progress report on the prevalence rate, employment, poverty, and household income of working-age people with disabilities (ages 21-64) uses data from the 2007 and earlier Current Population Surveys – Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS-ASES, a.k.a. Annual Demographic Survey, Income Supplement, and March CPS). The CPS is the only data set that provides continuously-defined yearly information on the working-age population with disabilities since 198

Rising Poverty in the Midst of Plenty: The Case of Working-Age People with Disabilities over the Business Cycles of the 1980s and 1990s. Policy Brief

“When you cannot measure, your knowledge is meager and unsatisfactory”—Lord Kelvin. (Chiseled on the archway of the University of Chicago Social Sciences Building). The United States Bureau of the Census provides official poverty rates for most vulnerable populations in the United States, but does not do so for working-age people with disabilities. This paper creates a comparable poverty measure for those with and without disabilities using March Current Population Surveys (CPS) for the years 1981-2004. In contrast to other vulnerable populations whose economic well-being improved substantially over the 1990s, the poverty rate of working-age people with disabilities increased both absolutely and relative to working-age people without disabilities over both the 1980s and 1990s business cycles. The first step in reversing this socially unacceptable trend is for the United States government to provide an official poverty rate measure of the working-age population with disabilities both to better tract the progress of this economically vulnerable and little understood population and to determine the causes for the absolute and relative increase in their risk of poverty

Economics of Disability Research Report #6: Comparing the Robustness of Economic Outcomes Measured in the CPS and NHIS Data

Using data from the March Current Population Survey (CPS), Burkhauser, Daly and Houtenville (2001) show that the employment rates of working-age people with disabilities declined over the 1990s business cycle and that this population did not proportionally share in gains of 1990s economic growth. In this report we use the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) to test the robustness of these controversial findings. We first compare the concepts of disability, employment, and household income in the CPS and NHIS. We then develop hypotheses regarding the differences we find when using these concepts to estimate disability prevalence rates, employment rates, and mean household size-adjusted income with the CPS and NHIS. Finally, we carry out these estimates for working-age men and women with disabilities over the year 1983 through 1996 using these two data sets