A pair of recent newspaper articles about helping more people with disabilities enter the workforce shows not just how employment helps make life matter more for these individuals, but also the bottom-line benefits for the community they live in and America as a whole.
Finding employment for even a small fraction of people with disabilities can ease the burden of support provided by state and agencies, says Tulsa World staff writer Kyle Arnold in a pair of articles. So while finding jobs for 82 individuals with disabilities may sound minuscule, Arnold’s first article quickly explains why it is a headline-worthy figure for the Oklahoma Department of Rehabilitation Services:
If that doesn’t seem like a big number, then consider the $11.2 million in lifetime savings to taxpayers because those individuals aren’t receiving monthly checks, medical support and other state and federal benefits. Actually, those people quickly become full taxpayers and start paying back into the system that helped them back on their feet, said Jody Harlan, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Department of Rehabilitation Services.
There are over 300,000 individuals with disabilities of working age in the state of Oklahoma, according to statistics included in Arnold’s second article, “State agency helps people with disabilities enter workforce,” and only one in four has a job. While there are private organizations in Tulsa that provide opportunities for career training and contract services work to these individuals, which we’ve looked at previously, Harlan tells Arnold that Oklahoma’s newest initiative is a grant program that helps people with disabilities start their own businesses.
One of the program beneficiaries Arnold speaks with is Christie Knipp. To launch her coffee shop in the town of Bixby, she had to write a business plan and make a formal presentation to the agency in order to receive funding for the necessary equipment. One thing Knipp clearly understood was the value of a good location, as her coffee shop is just a few blocks away from a YMCA, making it a great stopover for families that utilize the facility.
Knipp’s two daughters were born with the same visual disability, aniridia, the she has. But she and her husband have made sure to involve them in the daily operation of the coffee shop to teach valuable job skills and to show them, “they don’t have an excuse,” says Knipp.
As we move into 2013, make plans instead of excuses. Resolve to improve the work situation for people with disabilities in your community. Share ideas for how to do that in the Comments section below.
Image by lovelihood (Kim Love).