Every year when March comes around I’m excited because it gives me so many things to celebrate. March is Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month, Women’s History Month and my birthday month which I love celebrating all month long. Nevertheless, there’s a moment, a day when I’m not so happy, when I am reminded of how much of an uphill battle women with disabilities have to climb when it comes to certain aspects of living life. Did you know people with disabilities are getting paid 66 cents to dollar compared to those without disabilities? This pay gap is one of many challenges that people face when working as person with a disability.
March 14th is national equal pay day, a day that signifies how far into the year women have to work to make what their male counterparts made the previous year. What I didn’t know until recently is that while March 14th is the national day, there are various equal pay days by race and of course having a disability factors in. Disability makes being a part of the workforce harder because many still have incorrect preconceived notions about what people with disabilities are capable of when you add in being a woman in the workforce, there’s an almost certainty that we will not be making what our male counterparts are getting paid.Did you know people with disabilities are getting paid 66 cents to dollar compared to those without disabilities (according to BestColleges.com), It’s disturbing to even consider what the numbers are for women with disabilities or how the addition of race impacts that number
A Wheelchair Girl’s Perspective Vol. 14: Challenges Of Working A Person With A Disability
The World of Work Before The Pandemic
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics In 2022, Workers with a disability were more likely to be employed part time than those with no disability. Among workers with a disability, 30 percent usually worked part time in 2022, compared with 16 percent of those without a disability. The proportion of workers with a disability who worked part time for economic reasons was higher than their counterparts without a disability (4 percent, compared with 3 percent). These individuals were working part time because their hours had been reduced or because they were not able to find a full-time job.
Prior to the pandemic, many in the disability community struggled to find jobs.If that wasn’t an issue, it was finding work in a place where we felt comfortable in regards to the disability and felt we could thrive. For years, people with disabilities knew that working from home or having a hybrid option would help us have more opportunities in addition to feeling like we could really accomplish all our tasks worry free, but working from home just wasn’t a widespread option, why I have no idea. I’ll just ask the same question I did before I was even old enough to enter the workforce, why not? Society has been making things harder on people with disabilities, when all we want to do is be productive members of society and the workforce just as everyone else is, because they have these incorrect assumptions about what we can and can’t do,
Working Through Covid & Going Back To “Normal” Is Not Something I Want To Celebrate
Working from home opens up so many opportunities for people with disabilities, however, the answer was always no, until covid. During the pandemic the world figured out how to make various companies and industries work efficiently from home, and though we have been back in the workplace for a while now, yet some companies are still using remote options, it seems like the disability community had a good idea all along.
When you take away the flexibility of a schedule, the lack of commute, and the ability to comfortably sit in your own space all day, you disregard that it opens up more job opportunities because people are not necessarily looking for local jobs. People were able to dedicate more time to working instead of thinking about travel time.When jobs were virtual people with disabilities didn’t have to worry about the inaccessibility of an office or that they wouldn’t be able to work, yet still their bodies what they needed, therefore increasing the size of potential job candidates. Working from home taught us that there are many opportunities and many ways to get one thing done if companies are just willing to listen, learn and communicate with their employees for accommodations that actually work and have an impact.
Covid as horrible as it was, showed people that there are benefits to working from home so it is something companies should include if they can. I fully understand having some aspects of life and the labor force go back to “normal”. What I can’t comprehend is the all or nothing approach. Before the pandemic, things were as we always knew even if some of us wished for something at times, or every day. When the pandemic showed that we could make things virtual if we had to and people were making it work, things changed, Now that Covid is more managed, I don’t understand why it has to be completely back to the way it was before as if society learned nothing positive about employees working virtually or in a hybrid situation.
One article on the topic states that simply listening to employees on this would go along way towards improving productivity and the happiness of the workers. One section of the article quoting content creator disability advocate Chelsea Bear, states: “Ultimately, employers need to listen to employees, understand their wants and needs, and make accommodations for those who need it,” she says. “Disabled people face adversity continuously and persevere. We can bring unique perspectives to the table, while showing coworkers that interacting with a disabled person is completely normal.”
What’s Still Lacking & Where I Hope It Goes For The Next Generation
Covid changed the world in several ways, but it also taught society how to adapt. People with disabilities are adaptable because we’ve had to be. We simply don’t live in a world designed for us to succeed. The need to work from home when the pandemic changed the world, should have been the start of something new in the world of work, and while it did in some ways I fear that some of the changes are not here to stay.
Working remotely may be more common today than it was before the pandemic, but people with disabilities are still struggling to land jobs and start meaningful career, working remotely in only one piece of the equation in order to bring more of disabled population into the workforce.
One of the reasons I started the Sitting Beauty Diaries was because I wanted to share my story and life experiences as a person with a disability. However, when I realized challenging the job hunting process would be I need to fill my spare timeI like writing this, that said, I hope the next generation of people with disabilities have more work opportunities. I hope that they have an easier time landing jobs in their chosen industries so that they can work as productive members of society in careers they love. I hope that employers are willing to work with them and genuinely listen to their unique perspectives. As was stated in another Forbes article, “Rather than trying to shove everyone back into the broken boxes of the past, we have an incredible opportunity to reopen and reshape our workplaces to the benefit of employees, employers, and the entire U.S. economy. It will be a long journey, but one that’s worth the work”.
People with disabilities want to work and have happy fulfilled lives just like everyone else, I just hope that one day we are given a chance and don’t face the same challenges of working as a person with a disability as we are right now. There is so much that still needs to be done for people with disabilities when it comes to work from equal pay, to opportunities to accommodations, but the thing is given all these things are done, I know the world will be astounded with the people that they are missing out on right now, by not doing more to be inclusive.
~ Kimberly
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