Job Crunch Even Harder On People With Disabilities : NPR: As large numbers of Americans deal with losing jobs, the unemployment rates are even higher among certain groups, including men, minorities — and also people with disabilities.
Lenny Kepil knows. He was laid off from his job this spring as a software test engineer. He'd been the last hired, but his whole department took a hit. 'It makes you nervous when you're laid off a long period of time. And right now, it's been seven months so far,' he says. 'So I have to get ready for the reality that things are stacking up against me.'
Kepil, who lives in Naperville, Illinois, has an impressive resume with more than 26 years as a software engineer. He's also deaf.
Unemployment Rates Almost Double
In October, when the national unemployment rate hit 10.2 percent, the numbers were much grimmer for working-age people with disabilities. "It's quite dramatic," says economist Andrew Houtenville, of the Institute on Disability at the University of New Hampshire. "You're talking about an unemployment rate for people with disabilities of around 17-and-a-half percent."
