[Colorado-Talk] Friday's Food for Thought

[Scott C. LaBarre]

Good morning everyone!!

 

As I have been sitting here sipping my coffee, a news alert flashed across
my email.  It says that 20.5 million American lost their jobs in April and
that our nationwide unemployment rate soared to 14.7 percent, the highest
since the Great Depression.  Now, this comes as no surprise given the
catastrophic effects of the COVID19 Pandemic, and quite frankly, I was
expecting even worse news.  The highest our unemployment rate has ever been
as a nation is 24.9 percent which occurred, of course, during the Great
Depression.

 

Reviewing this email alert triggered me to reflect on what we face as blind
people.  So I turned to a Google search to gather some current information
about the unemployment rate we encounter as blind people.  The most
optimistic    report I could find comes from 2019 and finds that 56 percent
of the blind and visually impaired community are unemployed.  Similarly Dr.
Eddie Bell's most recent research suggests that 63 percent of us are
unemployed.  So, let's split the difference and say that 59.5 percent of
those of us who are blind/visually impaired are unemployed.

 

I suspect that if only 14.7 percent of us were unemployed, we would be
rejoicing and dancing in the streets.  However, for our country, a 14.7
unemployment rate  represents a disaster.

 

Now my Friday morning research has been hasty and not constrained by
academic rigor and proven research methodologies.  For example, I don't know
if these various surveys and studies are comparing apples to apples or not.
As I understand it, the current 14.7 unemployment rate measures those who
are in the labor market and are seeking employment, but I am not sure if the
figures I dredged up for the blind are using the same framework or simply a
gross compilation of all working age blind folks whether they want to be in
the labor market or not.

 

Nevertheless, I don't think it is unfair to declare that our unemployment
rate far exceeds that of those who are sighted.  Although we have made some
progress in reducing our unemployment rate, it has been slow and grudging
improvement.  When I first joined the Federation  in 1986, we cited to
statistics that reported a 75 percent unemployment rate for the working age
blind.  So in a best case scenario, we have notched the needle upwards by
about 19 percent over 34 years.  This seems quite underwhelming given the
fact that we have passed landmark civil rights legislation, the ADA, 30
years ago as well as improving the quality of training and ushering an era
of advanced technology.

 

So my question for all of us is why haven't we done better?  Why isn't our
unemployment rate getting much closer   to that experienced by our sighted
sisters and brothers?  What do we need to do as a community to bring our
unemployment rate down to a level comparable and equitable with those who
are not blind?

 

As you would imagine, I have some thoughts about all of this, but I will
stop here.  I now want to throw the door open to a discussion.  I look
forward to reading your comments.  I also look forward to hearing many of
you on our Mountain at Five Zoom Cast where tonight Curtis Chong, Dan Burke,
and I will be discussing the topic of audible pedestrian signals, our saga
with the beeps, boops,clicks, and chirps that have been designed to aid our
travel.  

 

Until then, cheers!!

 

Scott 

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