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Research to Policy 

Roundtable

David Wittenburg

Presented at the 2013 Annual Compendium on Disability 

Statistics

Washington, D.C.

December 11, 2013
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• Employment trends and other related outcomes

• Policy challenges

• Lessons based on existing research

– What we know

– What we do not know

Objectives

2
3

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Percentage Employed

Work Limited Not Work Limited

Employment Differential

Gaps in Employment Rates Are Increasing

Source: 2012 Annual Statistics Compendium. 
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Poverty and Government Spending

• Poverty: 

– Relatively high for people with work limitations (31 percent)

• Federal expenditures 

– $357 billion in 2008 

• 12.0 percent of all federal outlays, up from 11.3 percent just 

six years earlier

Source: Stapleton and Livermore (2011). 

Source: 2012 Annual Statistics Compendium. 
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Policy Challenges
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Characteristics Related to Employment

• Relative to those without disabilities, people with disabilities are

– Older

– Have less education

– Less likely to be married

• Large differences in relative employment rates at older ages and 

for less educated groups

• Implications

– Return-to-work policies have to address multiple potential barriers

Source: Sevak 2013.
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The Fragmented Disability System

Federal Revenues State Revenues

SSA

HHS

ED DOT HUD

USDA VR HHS

DOT ED Labor

Local Public and 

Private Service 

Providers

SSA Field Office VR

LTC/HCBS

Housing Health Services

Taxpayers

People with 

Disabilities

DOL

SNAP Transit

FIT

FICA

SIT, Sales, Property...

Federal and 

State 

Agencies

TANF

One Stop

Mental 

Health 

Services
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Work Disincentives and Lack of Timely 

Supports

• Limited spending on employment supports relative to other 

supports

• Eligibility criteria for major programs focus on inabilities to work
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What Do We Know About Effective 

Employment Strategies?

• Intervention 

– Piloting before going to scale

– Customization and intensity of service delivery matters 

• Target population

– Larger employment outcomes in younger populations

• Intervention goals

– Have to be clearly understood by service providers and target population

Source: Wittenburg et al. 2013.
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What Don’t We Know About Effective 

Employment Strategies?

• Lack of evidence on the potential of coordinated and early 

intervention approaches

– Few incentives for agencies to jointly pursue early interventions

• Target populations are hard to identify 

• Lack of testing of systemic changes
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Summary

• Employment trends

– Downward trends indicate continued policy problem

• Multiple potential challenges to promoting employment

– Diverse population with multiple at-risk characteristics

– Fragmented support system

– Large work disincentives and lack of coordination

• Evidence suggests some potential to address challenges

– Customized supports to well-targeted supports with clear emphasis on 

employment are promising

• Challenge for agency leaders

– Tradeoffs of developing incremental policies (single agency) versus systematic 

changes (cross-system)
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References

Institute on Disability, University of New Hampshire. “2012 Annual Statistics Compendium.” Available at 

[http://www.disabilitycompendium.org/archives/2012-compendium-statistics/ ]. Accessed December 5, 2013.

Stapleton, David, and Gina Livermore . “Costs, Cuts, and Consequences: Charting a New Course for Working-Age 

People with Disabilities.” Report no. 11-03. Washington, DC: Mathematic Policy Research Center for Studying 

Disability Policy, 2011.

Sevak, Purvi. “Individual Characteristics and Employment Outcomes Among Individuals with Disabilities.” Personal 

communication, add date, 2013.

Wittenburg, David, David R. Mann, and Allison Thompkins. “The Disability System and Programs to Promote 

Employment for People with Disabilities.” IZA Journal of Labor Policy, vol. 2, no. 1, 2013, pp. 1–25.