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AAPD Announces Release of 2011 Annual Disability Statistics Compendium

Persistent Trend in Unemployment of People with Disabilities Must be Reversed

November 2, 2011 | AAPD Press Team

WASHINGTON, DC – November 2, 2011 – The American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), the nation’s largest cross-disability membership organization, is pleased to support the publication of the 2011 Disability Statistics Compendium released today at an event on Capitol Hill. This Compendium provides new data on the status of Americans with disabilities.

The Compendium data shows that:

· Working-age people with disabilities have a 16.1% unemployment rate, a substantive increase from 14.1% in September 2010. In contrast, there is an 8.5% unemployment rate for people without disabilities.

· 27.3% of people aged 18-64 with disabilities who live in the community live in poverty, compared with 12.8% of their counterparts without disabilities.

· From 2009 to 2010, the percentage of the total US population with a disability grew by 2.0 percentage points.

“Reversing the persistent and continuing trend of high unemployment and poverty among people with disabilities has to be a top priority in this country,” said AAPD’s President and CEO, Mark Perriello. “People with disabilities want to work. We want opportunities in the private and public sectors that lead to good, meaningful jobs and a secure economic future. Job creation initiatives need to address the barriers to employment that many people with disabilities still face, and promote equal opportunity.” he added.

The Disability Statistics Compendium reports statistics pertaining to people with all types of disabilities every year. Such statistics are often difficult to find because there are numerous government agencies that generate and publish many reports. As a result, specific disability statistics are often scattered or buried in documents and web sites all across the Federal government. AAPD works with the University of New Hampshire Institute on Disability (UNH/IOD) to address these research problems in the effort to produce the Compendium, a project funded by the National Institute on Disability Research and Rehabilitation.

The 2011 Compendium serves as a reference guide for policymakers, compiling data on the prevalence of disability, employment participation, educational attainment and health status, federal expenditures, and state-level data.

For more information about the Disability Statistics Compendium, please visit http://www.disabilitycompendium.org.

For more information about UNH/IOD, please visit http://www.iod.unh.edu.

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The American Association of People with Disabilities promotes equal opportunity, economic power, independent living, and political participation for people with disabilities. www.aapd.com

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The American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), the country's largest cross-disability membership association, organizes the disability community to be a powerful force for change – politically, economically, and socially. AAPD was founded in 1995 to help unite the diverse community of people with disabilities, including their family, friends and supporters, and to be a national voice for change in implementing the goals of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). To learn more, visit the AAPD Web site: www.aapd.com.