Disability Employment Ties Record as Labor Force Participation Rises

The employment rate among working-age Americans with disabilities rose to 39.8% in August 2026, matching the all-time high recorded in November 2025, according to the September National Trends in Disability Employment–Jobs Report, or nTIDE. The monthly analysis, issued by Kessler Foundation and the University of New Hampshire’s Institute on Disability, found that the employment-to-population ratio for people with disabilities increased from 38.3% in July to 39.8% in August. Over the same month, the corresponding rate for people without disabilities declined from 75.0% to 74.6%. The report, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data customized for adults ages 16 to 64, also showed that labor force participation among people with disabilities reached a new record while participation among people without disabilities edged lower.

The employment-to-population ratio measures the share of a population that is working: the number of employed people is divided by the total population and multiplied by 100. For people with disabilities ages 16 to 64, the 1.5-percentage-point rise from July to August represented a 3.9% relative increase, the report said. By comparison, the rate for people without disabilities in the same age range fell by 0.4 percentage points, or 0.5% relative to the July level. The difference between the two employment rates narrowed from 36.7 percentage points in July, based on rates of 38.3% and 75.0%, to 34.8 percentage points in August, based on rates of 39.8% and 74.6%. Thus, the August data recorded a smaller gap even though substantial differences remained between the groups.

Labor force participation also increased among people with disabilities while declining slightly among those without disabilities. Among people with disabilities ages 16 to 64, the rate increased from 42.4% in July 2026 to 43.4% in August, a one-percentage-point rise and a 2.4% relative increase. Among people without disabilities, participation fell from 78.2% to 77.9%, a decrease of 0.3 percentage points, or 0.4% relative to July. The labor force participation rate includes people who were employed, actively looking for work during the previous four weeks, or temporarily laid off or on furlough, and expresses that labor force as a share of the total population. The August participation rate for people with disabilities surpassed the previous record of 42.8% set in November 2025.

John O’Neill, director of the Center for Employment and Disability Research at Kessler Foundation, said the rise in employment after a July increase in active job seeking “suggests that many of those job seekers found work.” He had reported in July that more people with disabilities were actively looking for work relative to people without disabilities. The August employment increase is consistent with that stated interpretation, although the nTIDE figures are population-level measures rather than a count of individual job seekers moving into employment. The reported result is therefore a 1.5-percentage-point monthly increase in the employment-to-population ratio for people with disabilities, accompanied by a one-percentage-point rise in their labor force participation rate.

The year-to-year comparison also showed higher employment and labor force participation for people with disabilities. Between August 2025 and August 2026, the employment-to-population ratio for people with disabilities ages 16 to 64 increased from 38.5% to 39.8%, a gain of 1.3 percentage points, or 3.4% relative to the 2025 level. The rate for people without disabilities edged up from 74.5% to 74.6% over the same period, an increase of 0.1 percentage points, or 0.1%. Disability labor force participation rose from 42.2% to 43.4% year over year, a gain of 1.2 percentage points, or 2.8%. For people without disabilities, the participation rate was unchanged at 77.9% in both August 2025 and August 2026. On both the monthly and annual comparisons, therefore, the disability employment-to-population and labor force participation measures rose, while the non-disability measures were flat or slightly lower.

Andrew Houtenville, a professor of economics and director of the UNH Institute on Disability, called the record participation rate a generally positive sign of greater engagement in the labor market. He also connected the increase to financial pressure, noting that prices continue to rise and that many people with disabilities live at or below the poverty line. His comments described a possible economic context for stronger labor force participation, including the need of people with disabilities and their families to cope with rising living costs. The nTIDE figures reported in the release do not quantify the contribution of financial necessity, and the data do not separate employment choices made for different reasons. The measured finding itself is that 43.4% of people with disabilities ages 16 to 64 were working or otherwise participating in the labor force in August, the highest rate in the nTIDE series.

Counts released with the report place the scale of disability employment within the overall U.S. workforce. In August, 6,788,000 workers ages 16 to 64 had disabilities, representing 4.5% of the total 150,913,000 workers in that age range. This share is a workforce composition measure, not an employment rate: it compares the number of workers with disabilities with the total number of workers and does not show the proportion of all people with disabilities who were employed. The 39.8% employment-to-population figure answers that separate question by using the population of people with disabilities ages 16 to 64 as its denominator. Likewise, the 43.4% labor force participation figure includes both people who were employed and those who were unemployed but actively seeking work or temporarily away from a job.

The nTIDE project is a joint effort of Kessler Foundation and the University of New Hampshire’s Institute on Disability. It issues monthly reports on employment and labor force trends for people with and without disabilities using data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The series customizes the underlying data to focus on working-age adults ages 16 to 64, and the September 2026 report draws on the Bureau’s August jobs data. Its two principal measures describe different aspects of the labor market. The employment-to-population ratio captures the share who are working, while the labor force participation rate combines people who are working with those who are actively looking for work or temporarily laid off or on furlough. Both are expressed relative to the relevant population rather than to the size of the labor force alone.

The August results show that the new disability labor force participation record did not erase the difference between people with and without disabilities. The employment gap was 34.8 percentage points, calculated from the 39.8% rate for people with disabilities and the 74.6% rate for those without disabilities. The labor force participation gap was 34.5 percentage points, based on rates of 43.4% and 77.9%, respectively. Those August gaps followed the July employment gap of 36.7 percentage points and July participation gap of 35.8 percentage points, calculated from rates of 42.4% and 78.2%. The month therefore coincided with movement in the same direction for both groups: employment and participation increased among people with disabilities and decreased modestly among people without disabilities. Year over year, however, the changes for people without disabilities were comparatively small, while both disability measures increased more clearly.

Taken together, the September nTIDE results document a combination of record monthly levels and positive annual changes. Employment among people with disabilities matched the 39.8% high previously reached in November 2025, while labor force participation reached a new high of 43.4%. The strongest immediate movement occurred between July and August, when disability employment increased by 1.5 percentage points and participation rose by one percentage point. The report also provides population totals showing that 6.788 million working-age workers with disabilities accounted for 4.5% of all workers in the age range. Taken together, the figures indicate greater employment and labor market engagement among working-age Americans with disabilities in August 2026, alongside persistent disparities in the measured rates of employment and participation between people with and without disabilities.

Subject of Research: Monthly U.S. disability employment and labor force participation trends

Article Title: Employment among people with disabilities ties all-time high

Article References: Employment among people with disabilities ties all-time high. Original publication (Bibliographic details unavailable.)

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Keywords: disability employment, labor force participation, nTIDE, employment-to-population ratio, workforce disparities, working-age adults, Bureau of Labor Statistics, August 2026, Kessler Foundation, UNH Institute on Disability, Employment, people