Employment Programs

Providing personal assistance services (PAS) in the workplace (WPAS) is one approach to support the employment of individuals with disabilities. This study examined the implementation of Medicaid WPAS by collecting & analyzing telephone interview data from key informants selected from county & public authority officials in California in 2010. The results showed that less than a fraction of 1% of individuals with disabilities who used Medicaid personal care services used the services at work.

This site highlights the employment successes of people with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD) who are working in paid jobs in their communities. Through the use of innovative, front-line employment support practices, these individuals are earning money, forming networks, and contributing to their communities. Learn more about these people and the promising practices that led to their success.

State and local disability employment services are operated by a number of different public & nonprofit agencies. Organizations find it necessary to access funds from more than one program, agency, or funding stream. As a result, many program administrators & staff face the challenge of developing strategies to braid disability employment funding. This report profiles four programs that have implemented braided funding strategies to support hiring initiatives with employer partners.

In 2008, Congress revised the regulations for Ticket to Work, a federal program created to improve incentives and supports for people who receive disability benefits to seek employment. This issue brief discusses how Ticket to Work participation by service providers and beneficiaries has changed under the revised regulations. It also describes providers' early experiences with these regulations.

This new job-search engine is a public-private partnership that delivers free access to information, outreach and resources to businesses, job seekers and the public workforce system to ensure greater recruiting and hiring opportunities for job candidates with disabilities. There are nearly 1 million job listings from more than 90,000 screened employers in the private and public sectors.

The U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Disability Employment Policy’s (ODEP) new toolkit includes discussion guides and answers to frequently-asked-questions for people looking for jobs, employers, community employment agencies and others. Integrated employment places both youth and adults in regular jobs in their communities, along with any needed supports, so they can earn a decent wage. In an integrated employment setting, most of the employees are not persons with disabilities.

Two reports look at costs, services, characteristics, and impacts of the Work Incentives Planning and Assistance program, which aims to inform beneficiaries with disabilities about work incentive programs, help them increase employment, and reduce their dependence on benefits. The program is serving a select group of beneficiaries who are actively working, seeking employment, using the SSA work incentive provisions, and leaving the disability rolls at relatively high rates.

Research from Mathematica's disability experts offers findings on programs to help move people with disabilities off the beneficiary rolls & into employment. As part of the 7-year evaluation of the Ticket to Work program, a recent report looks at the experiences of employment service providers after the Social Security Administration revised regulations to address challenges in the original program. The SSA successfully educated providers about revised regulations & instituted related supports.

Despite more than $428 billion in spending in FY2008 to assist working-age people with disabilities, services provided are often fragmented, confusing, & less effective than they could be. This brief explains how the government serves a caretaker role. Authors point out that this model runs contrary to the goal of maximizing self-sufficiency embraced by the Americans with Disabilities Act & fails to direct funds to help those with disabilities join, remain in, or return to the workforce.

A review of the federal financing mechanisms used by state agencies to implement the evidence-based employment models ( IPS and CE) come with the recognition that the federal financing of employment services for people with serious mental illness is a shared responsibility across multiple federal agencies. Improvements in this shared responsibility can lead to more effective support for these evidence-based employment models at the state and local levels.