CDC Statistics: Disability Impacts All of Us
Source: CDC Disability & Health Data
1 in 4
U.S. adults live with a disability
Approximately 61 million adults in the United States — about 26% of the adult population — have some type of disability.
Mobility is the most common disability type — affecting over 1 in 8 adults. This includes serious difficulty walking or climbing stairs.
Serious difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions affects roughly 1 in 10 adults.
Difficulty doing errands alone such as visiting a doctor or shopping due to a physical, mental, or emotional condition.
Deafness or serious difficulty hearing affects nearly 6% of U.S. adults.
Blindness or serious difficulty seeing even when wearing glasses affects over 4% of U.S. adults.
Difficulty dressing or bathing due to a physical, mental, or emotional condition.
Research note: These six disability types (mobility, cognition, independent living, hearing, vision, self-care) are the categories used by the CDC's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) — the primary national data source for disability prevalence in the U.S.
Employment Landscape for Disabled Workers
Despite legal protections under the ADA, disabled workers face persistent systemic barriers to equitable employment. These disparities are the core context for our research into workplace inclusion narratives.
Employment gap
Working-age adults with disabilities are employed at roughly half the rate of those without disabilities.
Poverty rate
People with disabilities are more than twice as likely to live in poverty compared to people without disabilities.
Underemployment
Many disabled workers are employed part-time or in jobs below their skill level due to a lack of reasonable accommodations.
Disclosure barriers
Fear of stigma and discrimination leads many workers to not disclose disabilities to employers, limiting their access to accommodations.
Disabilities Covered Under the ADA
Source: ADA.gov — Introduction to the ADA
Under the ADA, a person with a disability is someone who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, has a history or record of such an impairment, or is perceived by others as having such an impairment. The ADA regulations do not list every covered disability — the following are examples organized by category.
Important: The ADA covers many other conditions not listed here. A disability will affect each person differently — the same diagnosis can manifest in very different ways across individuals, which is why person-centered accommodation is essential.
Algorithms, AI & Disability Discrimination in Hiring
Source: DOJ & EEOC Guidance, May 2022
Employers increasingly use hiring technologies — resume screeners, video interview AI, personality assessments, and predictive scoring models — to select employees. While these tools may be useful, they may also result in unlawful discrimination against people with disabilities. The Department of Justice and EEOC jointly issued guidance on this issue in May 2022.
Resume Screening Algorithms
Tools that scan for keywords or compare applicants to current employees may systematically exclude disabled candidates who have non-linear career paths or employment gaps due to disability.
Video Interview AI
Facial recognition and voice analysis tools can screen out qualified applicants with autism, speech impairments, Parkinson's disease, or other conditions that affect appearance or speech patterns.
Personality Assessments & Gamified Tests
Computer-based games or personality tests can penalize cognitive, sensory, or motor disabilities — measuring impairment rather than job-relevant skills.
Predictive Scoring Models
AI systems trained on historical employee data inherit the biases of past exclusion — if disabled people were historically underrepresented in an employer's workforce, the model will continue to screen them out.
DOJ Requirements: What Employers Must Do
The following obligations apply to all employers — both public (state and local governments, enforced by the DOJ) and private sector (enforced by the EEOC) — when using hiring technologies.
Employers must evaluate hiring tech before and during use
Employers are required to assess whether technologies unfairly screen out individuals with disabilities who can perform the essential functions of the job with or without reasonable accommodations.
Technology must measure job skills — not disability
Any test or tool must measure only the relevant skills and abilities of an applicant, not reflect impaired sensory, manual, or speaking skills that are not required for the job.
Reasonable accommodations extend to hiring technology
Employers must provide accommodations during the hiring process — such as an accessible version of an interview platform, alternate testing formats, or extended time — unless doing so creates an undue hardship.
Third-party tools do not transfer liability
Employers are responsible for the discriminatory impact of hiring technologies even when purchased from a third-party vendor. "We didn't build it" is not a valid defense under the ADA.
Employers cannot seek medical information through hiring tech
Using technology to gather medical or disability-related information — or to conduct de facto medical exams — is unlawful under the ADA before a conditional offer of employment.