Disabled Workers, Already in a Tough Spot, Now Have It Worse

The global pandemic is worsening a labor market that already presents obstacles for workers with disabilities.

For America’s almost 30 million working-age disabled citizens -- who deal with challenges including seeing and hearing, as well as getting around -- the large majority of job opportunities lie in food service, hospitality and retail. But when virus lockdowns brought those sectors to a standstill, workers with disabilities quickly saw their jobs vanish.

During the peak of pandemic-induced job losses, 18.9% of disabled Americans were unemployed, compared with 14.3% of the non-disabled population, according to unadjusted April data from the Bureau of Labor ...