Data Sources

Data Source: National Survey of State Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Agencies' Employment and Day Services. This survey collects state level data on employment and day services distribution and funding.

Years Covered: 1988, 1990, 1993, 1996, 1999, 2001, 2004, 2007-2021

Data displayed:

  • Total served
  • Integrated employment, number
  • Integrated employment percentage
  • Community-based non-work, number
  • Community based nonwork percentage
  • Facility-based work, number
  • Facility-based work percentage
  • Facility-based non-work, number
  • Facility-based nonwork percentage
  • Facility-based and non-work, number
  • Facility-based and nonwork settings percentage
  • Integrated employment rate
  • Total funding
  • Integrated employment funding
  • Agency Waiting List
  • Community-based non-work funding
  • Facility-based non-work funding
  • Facility-based work funding
  • Percentage of total funding to integrated employment

Additional information:

Employment and day service counts include Medicaid authority funded services for which referral, program monitoring, or case management are provided by the state IDD agency. Day and employment services include all day and employment services except those conducted on the grounds of residential facilities with 16 or more residents.

Service Definitions:

Integrated employment services include both (a) job development services (including discovery and career planning as part of a job development process) that are intended to directly result in paid integrated employment and (b) services to maintain paid integrated employment (including job training, job coaching (both individual and group), ongoing supports, and services for self-employment).  

Facility-based work services include all employment services which occur in a setting where the majority of employees have a disability, and occur in setting where continuous job-related supports and supervision are provided to all workers with disabilities. This service category is typically referred to as a Sheltered Workshop, Work Activity Center, or Extended Employment program and includes facility based pre-vocational services.  

Community-based non-work services include all services that are explicitly focused on supporting people with IDD to participate in individually chosen and scheduled activities and at locations in the community that members of the general community typically participate in and access. May include activities that support career exploration, wrap around work time, or serve as a retirement option. This service is sometimes referred to as Community Life Engagement, Community-Based Day or Community-Based Non-Work.  

Facility-based non-work services include all services that are located in a setting where the majority of participants have a disability. These activities include but are not limited to: psychosocial skills development, activities of daily living, recreation, and/or professional therapies (e.g., occupational, physical, and speech therapies). Individuals may participate in community outings and activities, but the majority of an individual's time is spent in the program setting, and continuous supports and supervision are provided to all participants with disabilities. This service category is also referred to as Day Activity, Day Habilitation, and Medical Day Care programs.

Data Source: Rehabilitation Services Administration Case Service Report (RSA-911). The RSA-911 is a Federal dataset that captures characteristics, services provided, and education and employment outcomes of individuals receiving vocational rehabilitation (VR) and supported employment services. State VR agencies submit quarterly reports of both open and closed cases. Records are at the individual level and cover approximately 1.5 million individuals at various stages of the VR process.

Years Covered: 2002 - 2020

Data displayed:

  • Total closed
  • Rehabilitated, Status 26
  • Not rehabilitated, Status 28
  • Rehabilitation rate
  • Sheltered employment
  • Not Rehabilitated, Status 30
  • Integrated employment closures
  • Incidence rate
  • Supported employment closures
  • Weekly earnings
  • Hours per week
  • Average cost, status 28
  • Average cost, status 26
  • Average days, status 26
  • Average days, status 28
  • Average days from application to eligibility
  • Cost of services
  • Avg. days from eligibility to close
  • Percent closures into employment

Additional Information:

RSA Service Definitions

Term

Explanation

Closure

Data in the RSA-911 include both open and closed cases. The VR closure categories used in this report include closure with an employment outcome after receiving services (formerly Status 26), closure without an employment outcome after receiving services (formerly Status 28), and closure after eligibility but before an individual plan for employment is developed (formerly status 30). Beginning in Program Year 2017, data are also reflective of post-closure outcomes, including employment status in the second and fourth quarters following exit.

Successful rehabilitation

Closure with an employment outcome, including competitive integrated employment (including supported employment), self-employment, and state-agency-managed business enterprise.

Rehabilitation rate

The percentage of individuals receiving services who achieve a successful rehabilitation. Calculated as: closures with an employment outcome / closures with an employment outcome + closures without an employment outcome after receiving services.

For the purposes of this report, a person was considered to have an intellectual disability (ID) if code 25 (mental retardation in the RSA-911 dataset through 2016) was reported as the cause of either a primary or secondary impairment to employment.

Data Source: Social Security Administration (SSA). The SSA reports work-incentive participation and the number of individuals receiving SSI who are working.

Beginning with the 2010 SSI Annual Statistical Report, tables showing data by diagnostic group provide more specific details for mental disorders in these categories: autistic disorders, developmental disorders, childhood and adolescent disorders not elsewhere classified, intellectual disability, mood disorders, organic mental disorders, schizophrenic and other psychotic disorders, and all other mental disorders. Data from previous years use three categories for mental disorders: retardation, schizophrenia, and other.

Years Covered: 1990 - 2021

Data displayed:

  • PASS users
  • IRWE users
  • BWE users
  • SSI recipients with disabilities
  • Working SSI recipients with disabilities
  • Percent of SSI recipients who work

Additional Information:

 

Work Incentive Program Definitions

Program

Definition

Plan for Achieving Self-Support (PASS)

Allows a person with a disability to set aside income or resources to support achieving a specific work goal. Money set aside under a PASS is excluded both as current income and from the SSI resource limits.

Impairment-Related Work Expenses (IRWE)

Allows people to exclude the cost of certain impairment-related services or items needed to earn income when determining the beneficiary’s current earned income for SSI eligibility and benefits.

Section 1619(a)

Allows people with disabilities to continue receiving SSI income even if their earned income is at Substantial Gainful Activity levels, i.e., the amount that would normally make them ineligible for SSI.

Section 1619(b)

Allows individuals to continue receiving Medicaid benefits if their earnings disqualify them from eligibility for SSI cash payments but are not enough to afford medical insurance.

Data Source: U.S. Census and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Years Covered: 1990-2019

Data displayed:

  • State population
  • Unemployment rate

Additional Information: n/a

Data Source: The American Community Survey (ACS) is a nationwide survey designed by the U.S. Census Bureau to provide communities with a fresh look at how they are changing. It is a critical element in the reengineered 2010 census plan. The ACS collects information from all 50 states and D.C. on topics such as disability, age, race, income, commute time to work, home value, veteran status, and other important data. As with the official decennial census, information about individuals is confidential. (Source: www.census.gov.)

StateData.info only displays ACS data from 2008 onward. This is because ACS changed the way it asks about disability. Research conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau demonstrates that the 2008 questions should not be used to make comparisons to earlier ACS disability estimates. (Description of disability question changes.)

Years Covered: 2008-2021

Data displayed:

  • Number of people
  • Number of people employed
  • Percent of Working-Age People Who Are Employed
  • Weekly hours worked
  • Mean annual earnings from work (in thousands of dollars)
  • Percentage below poverty

Additional Information:

To gather information on people with disabilities, the Census Bureau asks six questions on long-lasting conditions and functional impairments. Any person who indicates having one or more of these conditions or functional impairments is considered as having a disability. The individual items used to collect these data points are outlined in in the table below.

ACS Service Definitions

Term

Explanation

Employment rate

The percentage of civilian, non-institutionalized working-age (16–64 years old) individuals who have a job.

Disability categories

The ACS classifies individuals as having a disability based on answering affirmatively to one or more of the following items:

  • Is this person deaf or does he or she have serious difficulty hearing (hearing disability)?
  • Is this person blind or does he or she have serious difficulty seeing even when wearing glasses (vision disability)?
  • Does this person have serious difficulty walking or climbing stairs (ambulatory difficulty)?
  • Does this person have difficulty dressing or bathing (self-care difficulty)?
  • Because of a physical, mental, or emotional condition, does this person have difficulty doing errands alone such as visiting a doctor’s office or shopping (independent-living difficulty)?
  • Because of a physical, mental, or emotional condition, does this person have serious difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions (cognitive disability)?

 

Data Source: The NCI program tracks the outcomes of people with intellectual disabilities who received services from participating state intellectual and developmental disabilities agencies. Data are collected from a random sample of individuals who received services from these state agencies. Data are then aggregated and used to support state efforts to strengthen long-term care policy, inform the conduct of quality assurance activities, and compare state performance with national norms. The NCI is coordinated through the National Association of State Directors of Developmental Disabilities Services and the Human Services Research Institute (www.nationalcoreindicators.org).

Years Covered: The most recent fiscal year that data is available. Currently, it’s 2019/2020

Data displayed:

  • In an integrated job
  • In an individual job
  • In an individual job without publicly funded supports
  • In an individual job with publicly funded supports
  • In a group supported job
  • Employment support unknown

Additional Information:

For NCI data in some states there is a small number of total respondents, therefore comparison of the percentages of people employed, earnings, and work hours across states should be made with caution. Additionally, in circumstances where fewer than 20 people were reported in an employment category the data were not reported.