Lamenting The Few Employment Opportunities For Adults With Intellectual Disabilities

By Edna Booker


Folks afflicted with intellectual disabilities have many challenges because of their conditions. They include omnipresent difficulties in gaining paying employment to support themselves. The government spends billions of dollars in programs intended to enable adults with intellectual disabilities gain employment. Despite this in the United States, an excess of half of such adults are currently either not working or are searching for employment unsuccessfully.

The SSA or Social Security Administration programs benefit intellectually challenged people. These are those impaired in cognitive or communicative functions, those with low levels of IQ and those with serious impairments in social or personal functions. Administration in Social Security programs provide vital lifelines to such people.

Should you be facing difficulties as you to try to access Social Security benefits as an intellectually challenged person, you may seek the services of an attorney in Portsmouth VA. Such an attorney should specialize in disability rights. They will help you make the initial application. They can also facilitate your appeal against a termination or denial of your disability assistance.

Recent studies show that forty-four percent only of people suffering intellectual infirmities appear among the labour force working or seeking employment. A smaller figure of these, thirty-four percent currently have jobs. This figure is much lower compared to seventy-three percent of the able working people in the workforce. Twenty-eight percent working age people who are disabled have never been in gainful employment.

It is natural in expectation that lower numbers of intelligence-disabled people are working than those without disabilities. It is however troubling that little progress in getting those disabled working has seen attainment despite huge sums of money spent. Studies show that the percentage of intellectually challenged people within the workforce has remained unchanged for over four decades.

The term disabled defines a wide number of people with the disabilities involved in the workforce. It often pin points those having an IQ much lower than seventy-five. It identifies those people with limitations in general life abilities such as those unable to handle money. The term also identifies individuals who have developed autism and such mind maladies as Down syndrome.

Given a chance, adults with mind challenges may perform certain jobs well. Research has shown sixty-two percent of the disabled working in competitive environments have been working for longer than three years. This means that if more efforts were directed towards getting disabled adults employed, they would contribute towards their self-support or dependence reduction. Expecting low performances from intellectually disabled persons is a problem needing address. These employees usually face segregation in their workplaces. This denies them progress opportunities while making it hard for them attain new skills. These obstacles must be seriously addressed.

Until most adults having intellectual disabilities have access to gainful employment, they will retain dependence to Social Security Administration disability benefits for their financial support. These benefits could be enough to cater for most adults. However, they have limitations based on past income and state maximums.




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