Chapter 5: The Disability Squeeze: How Unmet Needs and Out of Pocket Costs Impede Work for People With Disabilities

To access and sustain paid employment, people with disabilities often require disability-related goods and services and must make difficult decisions about what among these needs they can and cannot afford to pay for out-of-pocket. In this chapter, we examine how the deleterious financial strain of needing to purchase these goods and services, what we refer to as the disability squeeze, impedes the labor market participation of people with disabilities. We analyze novel survey data on the challenges of affording various kinds of out-of-pocket expenses by workers with disabilities. We ultimately argue that an inclusive future of work for people with disabilities calls for addressing the impact of the disability squeeze on employment through concerted efforts to reduce the extra costs of living with a disability.