As the U.S. marks the 22nd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, new Census data indicates that the number of people with disabilities is on the rise.
In a report released Wednesday, the federal agency found that 56.7 million people had a disability in 2010, an increase of 2.2 million since 2005.
Despite the growth in disability prevalence, however, the percentage of people with impairments remained relatively unchanged at 18.7 percent, accounting for roughly 1 in 5 Americans.
About 1.2 million adults had an intellectual disability, according to the report. Meanwhile, some 944,000 adults had other developmental disabilities including autism and cerebral palsy.
Among children, the Census found that 1.7 million kids had an intellectual or developmental condition.
The new Census data marks the first time since 2005 that the agency has offered estimates and analysis on the population of Americans with disabilities, officials said.
Several agencies including the Social Security Administration, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Administration on Aging rely on Census data in their planning.
Census: US Disability Rate Holds Steady
Census reports indicate that though the number of US residents with disabilities increased, the increase was only sufficient to maintain the proportion of PWD in the US population. The Census Bureau also released interesting numbers on amounts of people with various disabilities, and reminded people that lots of federal agencies rely on Census data to conduct planning.
“Data” is plural. The lead should read “…new Census data indicate that the number of people with disabilities is on the rise.”
My dr. told the that I could get on disability becasue I had depression and Type 1 Diabetes, 2 cronic illnesses. I this that is a load of crap. I’ve been workign since I was 12 years old and now I can just all the sudden stop and hang out at home and get a check as well. It seems to easy to me and is ripping of the gov”t. I understand the need to get assistance when you truely need it, but I’ve been working for a couple decades and been fine. If doctors and the gov’t are just going to allow anyone with a couple illnesses get disability they of course the US will be the country with the highest number! And of course my case has nothing to do with people with real and/or worse disabilities than I.
When 2% of the population is “gay,” we re-normalize society to align with that statistic. Why don’t we re-normalize the mentally “disabled” statistic in the same way and stop classifying every lameoid kid – and adult anymore – as autistic to excuse moronic behavior? That way we can stop doling out taxpayer (that’s about 50% of us these days) dollars to bogus health provider services for their care. I’ve got a size 10 boot for hire that will take care of the problem like it used to!
@Voice of Reason Great over simplification of a the problem! Insinuations and advocating physical harm is not going to solve the problem and more than more government hand outs will. The classifications and labels of old need to end. The language of old used to describe individuals with disability needs to end.
Stereotyping such as this is inhumane at best.
Ken says:
July 27, 2012 at 4:23 pm
“Data” is plural. The lead should read “…new Census data indicate that the number of people with disabilities is on the rise.”
Sure, if you’re speaking Latin. O.O Otherwise,”data” is fine in its singular form.