Other data sources

Data Source: The National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS-2)

Integrated employment is a critical goal because it leads to greater economic self-sufficiency, social inclusion, and personal satisfaction. Unfortunately, high schools do not always include integrated employment as a primary goal in the transition plans of students with intellectual or developmental disabilities. Moreover, in some cases sheltered employment is listed as the primary goal. As Table 1 demonstrates, only 53% of students with intellectual or developmental disabilities had integrated employment listed as a primary goal in their transition plans, and 10% had sheltered employment listed as a primary goal.

The Wagner-Peyser Act of 1933 established a nationwide system of public employment services, known as the Employment Service. Via the Workforce Investment Act of 1998, the Employment Service was made part of the One-Stop Career Center service-delivery system. Wagner-Peyser is a primary source of funding for these centers, which make employment services available to all people, including those with disabilities. There are currently 1,800+ comprehensive One-Stop Career Centers throughout the United States, as well as satellite and affiliate centers.

Setting expectations and goals in high school is key for a successful transition into adulthood. Postsecondary education is a particularly important goal because higher levels of educational attainment are associated with increased quality of life, including better employment outcomes. Unfortunately, the transition plans of students with autism do not often include postsecondary education as a goal.

This data note focuses on employment outcomes for individuals served by the One-Stop system through the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Adult funding stream ¹. Outcomes data include the rate of WIA customers entering employment and their employment retention rate. This data note compares outcomes among adults with reported disabilities to those without reported disabilities. Reporting of disabilities by One-Stop customers is voluntary. It is likely that some WIA Adult Services customers with disabilities do not disclose a disability and are therefore undercounted.

This data note explores how states vary in the number and percentage of job seekers with disabilities who register for services and identify as having a disability. In 2005, across all states and the District of Columbia, 3.1% of all job seekers were people who reported having a disability at registration (see table). The percentage of registered job seekers with a disability ranged from 0% in Washington D.C. to 8.3% in Delaware. The percentage of individuals identifying they have a disability has shown a steady increase over time, from 2.3% in 2002 to the 3.1% 2005 figure. In examining and interpreting this data, it is important to note that this data may not fully reflect the use of these services by people with disabilities, as it does not include individuals with non-apparent disabilities who have declined to identify that they have a disability.

The U.S. Department of Labor tracks several performance measures for people served in the One-Stop system. This Data Note focuses on people with disabilities in two funding categories. Data set: WIA.

This Data Note is the second in a series on the territories produced by the Access to Integrated Employment project, focusing on the secondary data analysis of federal data sets. The purpose is to describe the employment outcomes of adults with disabilities in the territory of Puerto Rico, drawing from a variety of data sources that are typically analyzed for individual U.S. states.

DataNote No. 64, 2019

DataNote No. 69, 2021

This Data Notes compares the change in employment of individuals with and without disabilities between February 2020 and three successive months, and found that individuals without disabilities were almost twice as likely to rebound to pre-pandemic employment levels than individuals with disabilities.