Disability workforce statistics at a glance
Disability workforce statistics show a labor market that is large, active, and still sharply divided by disability status.
The 2024 BLS annual averages make that gap easy to see: 24.5% labor force participation for people with a disability versus 68.1% for people with no disability, and 22.7% employment-population ratio versus 65.5% (BLS Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics - 2024).
Table of contents
- Fast facts
- Core labor force picture
- Employment and unemployment patterns
- Age splits that matter
- How disability workforce statistics changed from 2023 to 2024
- Federal workforce disability data
- Complaint and promotion signals
- What the Census, OECD, and EEOC add to the picture
Fast facts
Big number: In 2024, 33,945 thousand people age 16 and over had a disability in the civilian noninstitutional population, compared with 234,626 thousand people with no disability (BLS Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics - 2024).
Participation gap: The labor force participation rate was 24.5% for people with a disability and 68.1% for people with no disability (BLS Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics - 2024).
Employment gap: The employment-population ratio was 22.7% for people with a disability and 65.5% for people with no disability (BLS Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics - 2024).
Unemployment gap: The unemployment rate was 7.5% for people with a disability and 3.8% for people with no disability (BLS Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics - 2024).
Trend signal: From 2023 to 2024, the number of people with a disability in the labor force rose from 8,112 thousand to 8,328 thousand, and employed people with a disability rose from 7,528 thousand to 7,701 thousand (BLS Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics - 2024).
Core labor force picture
The cleanest way to read disability workforce statistics is to separate population size, labor force participation, employment, and unemployment. The 2024 BLS series gives all four pieces for both people with a disability and people with no disability (BLS Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics - 2024).
At a glance comparison
| Measure | People with a disability | People with no disability |
|---|---|---|
| Civilian noninstitutional population age 16+ | 33,945 thousand | 234,626 thousand |
| Civilian labor force | 8,328 thousand | 159,779 thousand |
| Employed | 7,701 thousand | 153,645 thousand |
| Unemployed | 627 thousand | 6,134 thousand |
| Not in the labor force | 25,618 thousand | 74,847 thousand |
| Labor force participation rate | 24.5% | 68.1% |
| Employment-population ratio | 22.7% | 65.5% |
| Unemployment rate | 7.5% | 3.8% |
That table tells a simple story: the labor market involvement of people with a disability is much lower overall, but the people who are in the labor force still represent a substantial population. In 2024, more than 8.3 million people with a disability were in the labor force, and more than 7.7 million were employed (BLS Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics - 2024).
One useful way to read this is to focus on the share of people who are not in the labor force. For people with a disability, 25,618 thousand were not in the labor force in 2024, compared with 74,847 thousand for people with no disability (BLS Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics - 2024). Because the population base is so different, the percentages matter more than the raw counts for comparison, and the participation and employment rates show the strongest contrast.
Employment and unemployment patterns
The 2024 disability workforce figures show two things at once: lower participation and lower employment, but also a labor force that is still sizable and active enough to track closely.
The main 2024 rates are straightforward:
- Labor force participation rate: 24.5% for people with a disability; 68.1% for people with no disability (BLS Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics - 2024).
- Employment-population ratio: 22.7% for people with a disability; 65.5% for people with no disability (BLS Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics - 2024).
- Unemployment rate: 7.5% for people with a disability; 3.8% for people with no disability (BLS Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics - 2024).
These are not abstract indicators. They define how much access each group has to the labor market, how many people are working, and how many people are actively looking but not yet employed.
Why the rate gaps matter
A low participation rate can reflect many different realities: retirement, school, caregiving, health limitations, or discouragement. The statistics dataset does not break those reasons out beyond disability status, so the safest reading is structural rather than speculative. What it clearly shows is that the labor market attachment rate for people with a disability is far lower than for people with no disability (BLS Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics - 2024).
A compact way to describe the difference is this:
In 2024, people with a disability were far less likely to be in the labor force, and once in the labor force they still faced a higher unemployment rate (BLS Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics - 2024).
That combination is important because it means disability workforce statistics are about access at two stages at once: entry into the labor force and success within it.
Age splits that matter
Age is one of the clearest ways to see how disability workforce statistics change across the life course. The 2024 BLS data splits the population into ages 16 to 64 and 65 and over, which reveals very different labor force patterns (BLS Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics - 2024).
Age-group comparison table
| Age group | Disability labor force participation | No disability labor force participation | Disability employment-population ratio | No disability employment-population ratio | Disability unemployment rate | No disability unemployment rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 to 64 | 40.7% | 77.9% | 37.4% | 74.9% | 8.1% | 3.9% |
| 65 and over | 8.5% | 23.9% | 8.1% | 23.2% | 4.6% | 2.9% |
This table makes two patterns obvious.
First, the working-age population aged 16 to 64 has much higher labor force attachment than the older group for both disability categories. Second, the disability gap remains large in both age bands, even though the absolute rates are much lower for the 65-and-over group (BLS Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics - 2024).
Working-age adults drive the signal
The working-age split is the one most readers will care about, because it reflects the part of the labor market where employment decisions, accommodations, hiring practices, and job design matter most.
For people ages 16 to 64 with a disability, the labor force participation rate was 40.7%, the employment-population ratio was 37.4%, and the unemployment rate was 8.1% (BLS Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics - 2024).
For people ages 16 to 64 with no disability, the corresponding figures were 77.9%, 74.9%, and 3.9% (BLS Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics - 2024).
That is a large and persistent gap. It means the headline disability workforce statistics are not just a retirement-age phenomenon; the gap appears strongly in the core working-age population too.
How disability workforce statistics changed from 2023 to 2024
Year-over-year movement is modest, but it does point in a consistent direction.
From 2023 to 2024, the number of people with a disability in the labor force rose from 8,112 thousand to 8,328 thousand, while employed people with a disability rose from 7,528 thousand to 7,701 thousand (BLS Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics - 2024).
At the same time, the employment-population ratio for people with a disability rose from 22.5% to 22.7%, and the labor force participation rate rose from 24.2% to 24.5% (BLS Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics - 2024).
What changed, in plain terms
- More people with a disability were participating in the labor force.
- More people with a disability were employed.
- The core rates moved up only slightly, but they moved in the same direction.
- The unemployment rate for people with a disability was 7.5% in 2024, which the dataset identifies as among the lower rates in the series (BLS The Economics Daily, 22.7 percent of people with a disability were employed in 2024).
The dataset also states that the 2024 employment-population ratio of 22.7% was the highest series value since data were first reported in June 2008, and the 24.5% labor force participation rate was also a series high since June 2008 (BLS The Economics Daily, 22.7 percent of people with a disability were employed in 2024).
That matters because it changes the framing. Disability workforce statistics are often discussed in terms of underrepresentation, but the recent trend shows gradual improvement inside a long-running series.
Disability workforce statistics in federal employment
The federal workforce adds a second lens. Here the question is not the civilian labor force overall, but how disability appears inside a large employer with formal hiring and promotion systems.
In FY 2018, 259,164 federal employees reported having a disability, equal to 9.42% of the federal workforce, and 46,383 workers had a targeted disability, equal to 1.69% of the workforce (EEOC EEO Status of Workers with Disabilities in the Federal Sector).
Another 108,826 federal employees, or 5.11%, did not identify their disability status (EEOC EEO Status of Workers with Disabilities in the Federal Sector).
Federal disability breakdown
| Federal workforce measure | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Any reportable disability | 259,164 | 9.42% |
| Targeted disability | 46,383 | 1.69% |
| Non-targeted disability | 181,204 | 8.51% |
| Disability status not identified | 108,826 | 5.11% |
The same report says the federal government’s overall hiring rate for employees with any reportable disability was 9.15%, compared with a 9.42% participation rate (EEOC EEO Status of Workers with Disabilities in the Federal Sector).
It also says the government exceeded its 2% targeted-disability hiring goal with a 2.36% permanent appointment rate, but missed the 12% goal for people with disabilities overall with an 11.20% permanent appointment rate (EEOC EEO Status of Workers with Disabilities in the Federal Sector).
These numbers are useful because they show that a workforce can be near one benchmark and still miss another. “Any disability” and “targeted disability” are not interchangeable categories, and the workforce data treat them differently for a reason.
Complaint and promotion signals
Disability workforce statistics are not only about who gets hired. They also reflect how workers experience recognition, advancement, discipline, accommodation, and complaint systems.
In FY 2018, 13.59% of federal workers with any disability held leadership positions, compared with 16.35% of workers with no disabilities (EEOC EEO Status of Workers with Disabilities in the Federal Sector).
For targeted disabilities, the leadership share was 10.70%; for workers who did not identify their disability status, it was 12.18% (EEOC EEO Status of Workers with Disabilities in the Federal Sector).
Promotion and leadership indicators
- Federal promotion selection rate overall: 0.110 promotions per employee (EEOC EEO Status of Workers with Disabilities in the Federal Sector).
- Employees with no disability: 0.107 (EEOC EEO Status of Workers with Disabilities in the Federal Sector).
- Employees with non-targeted disabilities: 0.109 (EEOC EEO Status of Workers with Disabilities in the Federal Sector).
- Employees with targeted disabilities: 0.117 (EEOC EEO Status of Workers with Disabilities in the Federal Sector).
- Employees with disability status not identified: 0.164 (EEOC EEO Status of Workers with Disabilities in the Federal Sector).
That set of figures should be read carefully. The promotion selection rate is one slice of the workforce experience, not a full measure of inclusion. But it does show that disability groups are not uniform in how they move through advancement systems.
Complaint volume by disability type
In FY 2018, federal formal EEO complaints included 4,666 physical disability complaints and 2,479 mental disability complaints (EEOC EEO Status of Workers with Disabilities in the Federal Sector).
Those totals represented 28.2% and 15.0% of all federal-sector complaints, respectively (EEOC EEO Status of Workers with Disabilities in the Federal Sector).
The top issues were consistent across both categories:
- Physical disability complaints: harassment (2,011), reasonable accommodation (1,546), disciplinary action (1,027) (EEOC EEO Status of Workers with Disabilities in the Federal Sector).
- Mental disability complaints: harassment (1,252), reasonable accommodation (696), disciplinary action (638) (EEOC EEO Status of Workers with Disabilities in the Federal Sector).
The complaint data are especially useful because they point to where friction concentrates. Harassment and reasonable accommodation appear repeatedly, which means the lived experience of disability at work is not only about labor force entry or employment rates.
What the Census, OECD, and EEOC add to the picture
The BLS annual series gives the strongest snapshot, but the other sources help connect the numbers to broader patterns.
The Census Bureau’s 2021 ACS-based infographic reported that among people ages 18 to 64 with any disability, 8,665,503 were employed, 1,315,849 were unemployed, and 11,265,153 were not in the labor force (U.S. Census Bureau Working With a Disability).
It also showed that for specific disability types:
- Hearing difficulty: 2.2 million employed and 194.7 thousand unemployed (U.S. Census Bureau Working With a Disability).
- Vision difficulty: 2.0 million employed and 256.0 thousand unemployed (U.S. Census Bureau Working With a Disability).
- Cognitive difficulty: 1.9 million employed and 1.6 million not in the labor force (U.S. Census Bureau Working With a Disability).
- Ambulatory difficulty: 6.1 million employed and 5.7 million not in the labor force (U.S. Census Bureau Working With a Disability).
- Self-care difficulty: 533.8 thousand employed and 2.7 million not in the labor force (U.S. Census Bureau Working With a Disability).
- Independent-living difficulty: 416.8 thousand employed and 133.4 thousand unemployed (U.S. Census Bureau Working With a Disability).
Those figures reinforce a central point: disability workforce statistics are not one simple category. Different disability types can coincide with very different labor force patterns.
The OECD adds a macro-level benchmark. It states that in every member country, people with disability have lower employment rates than people without disability, and that if employment rates were equal, about one in twenty working-age adults across the OECD would move into work (OECD Sickness and disability).
That statement is not a U.S.-only number, but it matters because it confirms the pattern is international rather than local. It also frames disability employment as a broad labor-market issue, not a niche administrative one.
Finally, the EEOC’s federal-sector report shows a gender split inside disability reporting. It states that 9.29% of men and 7.48% of women had non-targeted disabilities, while 2.07% of men and 1.63% of women had targeted disabilities (EEOC EEO Status of Workers with Disabilities in the Federal Sector).
That kind of breakdown matters because disability workforce statistics often hide internal differences unless the data are segmented.
Reading the numbers without overstating them
A disciplined reading of disability workforce statistics should stay close to what the data actually show.
Here is the cleanest summary from the supplied sources:
- People with a disability are substantially less likely to be in the labor force than people with no disability (BLS Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics - 2024).
- When they are in the labor force, they still face a higher unemployment rate (BLS Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics - 2024).
- The working-age gap remains large, not just the older-age gap (BLS Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics - 2024).
- 2024 brought a series high for both labor force participation and employment-population ratio in the BLS disability series (BLS The Economics Daily, 22.7 percent of people with a disability were employed in 2024).
- Federal workforce data show that disability representation, promotion, leadership, and complaint patterns do not move in exactly the same direction, which makes the internal structure of the data just as important as the top-line counts (EEOC EEO Status of Workers with Disabilities in the Federal Sector).
The data do not support a simple one-line story. They support a layered one: disability employment rates are lower, but the trend has improved at the margins; the working-age gap is still wide; and the federal workforce data suggest inclusion challenges continue well beyond hiring alone (BLS Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics - 2024; EEOC EEO Status of Workers with Disabilities in the Federal Sector).