The Ides of March may have been ominous to Julius Caesar, but for people with disabilities, today marks another important step in achieving inclusion into mainstream society.
Several changes to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) take effect today that are intended to improve opportunities for people with disabilities to goods and services in the world of commerce. Wendy Taormina-Weiss recapped the new standards and businesses affected for the website, Disabled-World.com. She also made a compelling case for why every effort should be made to comply with the new regulations by speaking the bottom-line language any business owner would understand:
People with Disabilities as a group have $175 billion in discretionary spending power according to the U.S. Department of Labor; a figure demonstrating twice the spending power of American teenagers and 18 times the spending power of, ‘tweens.
Hospitality is an industry specifically targeted by the updates, as hotel staff will now be required to provide details about accessibility features of its rooms and amenities, including door-widths and whether roll-in showers are available. Taomina-Weiss characterizes this change as necessary for providing information that allows individuals with disabilities to make better choices as consumers.
Most of the changes stem from updates to Titles II and III of the ADA that were passed in September 2010. These articles govern new construction, barrier removal, alterations, and program accessibility. Businesses who were already in compliance with the standards originally set forth in 1991 would not be required to make alterations; while businesses not in compliance had the two-and-a-half-year grace period to attain either the 1991or 2010 standards, but could not selectively mix the two sets of standards. Taormina-Weiss gives the scenario of updating an entrance using the 1991 standard while updating restrooms to the 2010 standard as an example of what would not be permissible.
Municipal entities such as play areas, swimming pools, and fishing piers would be similarly impacted by the new guidelines; however, the state and local governments could also opt to comply with the Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards (UFAS) rather than Title II and III, again, with the provision that the entity consistently adheres to one set of guidelines instead of mixing and matching as it finds convenient.
Taormina-Weiss continues making the economic case for compliance by pointing out that the 54 million Americans with disabilities are more than a consumer demographic. They are a part of the society interacting with other people who do not have a disability:
… [W]e visit restaurants, stores, movie theaters and many other places of business accompanied with our family members and friends. Making a business, facility, or other building accessible to us expands the potential market exponentially!
What goes unsaid in Taomina-Weiss’s recap is how conforming to these new standards will also improve job opportunities for people with disabilities, as businesses will have already made some of the necessary alterations to accommodate them as employees as well as consumers.
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Image by Sterlic (Scott Akerman), used under its Creative Commons license.