Employment has been a chronic issue for the disabled in New York. Only 35% of disabled people were employed pre-pandemic. 

Since COVID hit, it is estimated that half have lost their jobs, and more have had their hours cut.  30% of the city’s disabled live in poverty. 

Carol Glazer is the President of the National Organization on Disabilities, a group that advocates for the working disabled. She joined In Focus to talk about the reasons why unemployment has hit this community so hard: they often work in low-paying, low-skilled jobs and are, as she says, the last to be hired and the first to be let go in difficult financial times. 

She also spoke to the discrimination that often stands in the way of the disabled and jobs, and why the pandemic must show employers that working remotely, something advocates for the disabled have been asking for in order to bring more of them into the workforce, is actually possible for the long term.