Abstract

This study looks at whether the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) helped or hurt job opportunities for people with disabilities. The researchers used long-term survey data following the same individuals from 1981 to 1996 to see changes in work hours, yearly pay, and hourly wages. For the larger group studied, employment for people with disabilities dropped after the ADA took effect, but their pay compared to other workers stayed about the same. For a smaller group of workers tracked every year, job levels did not show the same drop, though wages for people with disabilities were already falling years before the ADA. The results suggest that the ADA’s effects are more complicated than earlier studies claimed and that changes in who is counted as “disabled” over time may affect the numbers.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-2011

Publication Information

8 Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 477-503 (2011)

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