Disability News: United States

Main Document

Information regarding disability in the USA including facts and statistics, news, and information of interest for persons with disabilities residing in, or visiting America.

U.S. Disability Statistics
Disability in America Infographic

The number of U.S. adults reporting a disability increased by 3.4 million between 1999 and 2005. 12.1% of the U.S. Adult Population Aged 21-64 Years Reported a Disability in 2008.

Today an estimated 39,395,000 people in the United States had a disability, or 14.8% of the population age 5 and over.

In addition, an estimated 7,092,000 people, or 2.7% of the U.S. population 5 and over, have difficulty performing self-care activities, also known as Activities of Daily Living, such as dressing, bathing, or getting around inside the home.

The Social Security Administration estimates that three in 10 of today's 20-year-olds will suffer a disability before reaching 67 and also reports 69% of the private sector work force has no long-term disability insurance.

Essentially, seven out of 10 workers would have to rely on their own personal savings, limited state-run insurance or Social Security for replacement income in the event they could not work because of a disability.

Veterans

In the year 2008, an estimated 16.9 percent (plus or minus 0.20 percentage points) of non-institutionalized civilian veterans aged 21 to 64 years reported having a VA service-connected disability in the United States. In other words, 2,217,000 out of 13,102,700 non-institutionalized civilian veterans aged 21 to 64 years reported having a VA service-connected disability in the United States in 2008 (U.S. Veteran Facts and Statistics)