Adults with Disabilities in the Workplace: Their Struggle for Inclusion and Equality

As Americans, we see it as everyone’s basic human right to be equal. The struggle for equality and acceptance has been an ongoing fight with many achievements along the way, yet many groups still strive for full inclusion. The disability community, who make up almost 20 percent of the population (Robert 2013) is one group still struggling for full inclusion in society, and their participation in the employment section is key to their goal. In the United States, the unemployment rate for people with disabilities is 81 percent (U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics). Unemployment among people with disabilities is at a staggering rate and that is due to the perception our society and businesses put on disabled people causing a stigma of looking at someone’s disability and not their ability. For about five years now, I have been the operations manager of a non-profit movie theater called the Prospector Theater in Ridgefield, Connecticut. The mission of the Prospector is to employ people with disabilities through the operation of a premium, first-run movie theater. I have met over one hundred employees with a wide range of disabilities in my time there. Before the theater was built in 2014, a majority of the existing workforce was unemployed. This experience has stoked my passion for ensuring greater inclusion of disabled people in the workforce. This experience has also has given me insight into the challenges facing this population as well as potential solutions