THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, September 10, 1996 TAG: 9609100005
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: By PAUL WEHMAN
LENGTH: 85 lines
When Christopher Reeve spoke at the Democratic National Convention, he reminded us that when it comes to disabled Americans, answers will be found not only with increased funding; increased expectations also are needed.
In the late 1970s, I met Charlie, a man with Down syndrome who received Supplemental Security Income payments. Charlie's disability was considered too severe to work in a real job - instead he was sent to an adult day program where he would make potholders or birdhouses. Charlie and his family wanted more - a real job with responsibility and a paycheck. That's what I wanted for him and that's what I was determined to help him get. Within a few months, with assistance from a supportive employer and a job coach who helped him master tasks, he had secured a job and was performing well.
This is supported employment - competitive employment at a minimum wage or better with ongoing help or support at the job. It's dramatically different from subsidized work - in this system, your job in retail, food services, printing or a variety of other settings is necessary. If you don't do it, someone else has to.
Reeve pointed out that $8.7 billion is spent to maintain 240,000 individuals with spinal-cord injuries, but only $40 million is spent on research for a cure. Supported employment shares the same dilemma in the sense that funding is absorbed when the government pays to keep potentially excellent workers housed in nursing homes and day programs. If we would invest more heavily in supporting individuals with disabilities in competitive employment, the long-run cost would be much less.
Though a time- and energy-intensive process, supported employment does not absorb additional financial resources. In fact, it is cheaper to place an individual into competitive employment with support - $4,200 - than to keep an individual in a day program - $7,400 annually. Last year in Virginia, more than $25 million was spent to keep people in day centers while only $11 million was spent to help people enter real work. With $36 million spent on these two programs in Virginia alone, suppose the state transferred 25 percent of these funds from day programs into competitive employment. The state would save $2.5 million annually while helping an additional 863 people with significant disabilities back to work.
Helping chronically unemployed people with disabilities is a major economic challenge to this country. Today close to 10 million beneficiaries draw about $60 billion a year in cash benefits from Supplemental Security Income and disability insurance. While Americans agree that disability benefits should go only to those people who are least able to work, there isn't a good record of moving capable people off the disability rolls and into the work force.
After placement through supported employment, most workers rely on their paycheck as their primary income, rather than public assistance or disability benefits. These individuals increase their annual earnings by an average of 490 percent. They earn an estimated $600 million annually and pay more than $100 million each year in federal, state and local taxes. That's tax money paid into the budget rather than paid out in the form of disability checks and subsidized work.
A major Louis Harris Poll observed that more than two-thirds of working-age people with disabilities are not employed, even though most indicated they would like to work. They are denied the opportunity because of their mental, physical or health-related disabilities. They are also hindered because, alone and unsupported, they are not well-equipped for our work force.
If we want to see people return to work, we must change the current system. Government agencies cannot continue to encourage people onto the disability rolls and punish those who try to leave. Furthermore, funds can and should be directed to community rehabilitation programs on the condition that they help people with disabilities enter and maintain competitive employment. Providing strong financial incentives, such as tax credits, to community programs and employers is a constructive approach to changing the system in a way that will reduce unemployment rates. And as disability recipients make the transition into competitive work, they must be protected from losing their health care, food stamps, subsidized housing and benefits.
More than 125,000 people with significant disabling conditions similar to Charlie's are employed in the nation's competitive work force through supports such as informed co-workers, job coaches and teaching devices like voice computers. This is a big increase from less than 10,000 in 1986; however, thousands with similar levels of significant disability remain in nonproductive situations waiting for their chance to work - and meanwhile draw disability checks. If supported employment is to continue its impact, legislators, employers and private citizens must recognize and support an untapped resource; legions of people who want to work but need the tools to do so. MEMO: Paul Wehman is a professor of physical medicine, rehabilitation
and education and director of the Rehabilitation Research and Training
Center for Supported Employment at Virginia Commonwealth University. by CNB