On July 16, 2012, Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and the Senate author of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, released a report detailing the current state of employment for adults with disabilities, and describing policy recommendations that would help to increase labor force participation. Following a series of bipartisan HELP Committee hearings to explore the persistently low employment rate of people with disabilities, this report outlines the next steps to achieve Chairman Harkin’s goal of raising the number of Americans with disabilities in the labor force to six million by 2015.
To build on the bipartisan successes of the ADA and continue to improve disability employment outcomes, Harkin plans to introduce legislation to:
- Improve outcomes in competitive, integrated employment for youth and young adults who are transitioning from school to higher education and work;
- Increase contracting opportunities for disability-owned businesses;
- Create incentives for States to develop and test innovative initiatives that can lay the foundation for modernizing our largest programs providing income support, health care, and long-term services and supports to our citizens with disabilities; and
- Encourage savings and wage support that will help people with disabilities leave poverty and enter the middle class.
To read the full report go to: http://www.help.senate.gov/