The Economics of Disability Employment

“If you remove risk, you remove opportunity,” according to Melissa Engle, manager of workforce and community services at Boundless’ West Carrolton campus. In the corporate world, the same is often said in another way: high risk, high reward. So why do employers feel uncomfortable taking a risk on employees with disabilities? And why should the public care if they do or don’t? The answer is simple: individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) represent a largely untapped population, and the economy suffers when they are ignored.

According to Angela Bellin, a MAX coaching specialist at Boundless, the opportunity for employers and the public has already been proven. She collected economic and tax statistics from the 2018 graduating classes of the MAX program, which works with adults who have I/DD to improve interpersonal and soft skills. Of the 14 people who graduated the 36-month program with full-time jobs, they earned a total of $465,000 and paid $117,000 in taxes in their first year working.

That’s at the heart of why disability employment matters to taxpayers. From the microeconomic perspective, employing people with disabilities allows them to contribute tax dollars when they are typically seen as people who are supported by tax money. It reduces the economic burden on the government, which in turn allows for tax dollars to be spent elsewhere or, in the long term, for personal taxes to be cut. “We pay out support to people that could support themselves, if given the chance,” Bellin pointed out. “Everyone can do something.” And for many individuals with I/DD, they can work and support themselves, they just aren’t ever given a chance.

But wait, how much does a program like that cost to run? And isn’t that funded by tax dollars?

For a class of 14 people, the MAX program cost $75,000 a year. It is not funded solely by tax dollars, but even if it was, the graduates regularly contribute more to taxes than it costs to run the program. Similarly, the workforce program in West Carrollton that Melissa oversees is funded through multiple sources, including tax dollars, but it makes up the cost of tax contributions from those who find and maintain jobs.

So, what’s in it for the companies that hire individuals with disabilities? It’s probably tax breaks from the government, right?

There are tax incentives from the state, but they probably aren’t as big as you think. Again, the increase in taxes paid by individuals is greater than the tax breaks to corporations. However, many smaller companies choose not to pursue tax breaks for a variety of reasons, so the real effect of such tax incentives is minimal.

Okay, so if it’s not the tax breaks, why should companies care?

As Engle acknowledged, hiring someone with I/DD may seem like a risk to many companies. Business owners or managers have some idea what autism or Down syndrome is, but fewer understand how it could affect their business. In Bellin’s words, “Neurodiversity is valuable to organizations.” One of the greatest strengths of people with I/DD is that they view the world differently than neurotypical people, which means they might have a solution to a business problem that no one has thought of before. They often have a more streamlined or efficient process for even simple behaviors, which saves the company time and money when applied to work tasks. Unfortunately, the public perception of neurodiverse individuals is the opposite.

Many business owners also assume that because the Americans with Disabilities Act requires reasonable accommodations for anyone with a disability, those accommodations are complicated and expensive. The opposite is true for most employees with I/DD. Some more common accommodations are having more time or a deadline to complete a task, a checklist of tasks, or a schedule that works around I/DD programs that the individual is enrolled in. And most employees with I/DD don’t even need or use any accommodations, according to Engle and Bellin. Both also questioned if accommodations were even the right place to start a conversation about I/DD employment because of how few accommodations are needed.

The math doesn’t lie. Employing individuals with I/DD is a smart business decision that reduces the tax burden on the government. It helps the individual, it helps the community, it helps the company, and it strengthens the economy. October is Disability Employment Awareness Month, but disability employment should be a focus of every month for companies because of the gains they can make.