Nationally, the unemployment rate for workers with a disability was 16.2 percent in September, compared with 9.2 percent for nondisabled workers, according to the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But that figure, which measures people in the workplace who lost jobs, tells only part of the story, experts say.
The total number of working-age disabled people without jobs nationally exceeds 70 percent, said Bill Ditto, New Jersey's director of disability services. The Garden State has 1.9 million disabled residents of all ages.
In Pennsylvania, about 530,000 working-age individuals receive Social Security disability benefits. In 2008, about 5 percent of them also had a job, said John Miller, vice president of AHEDD, a nonprofit placement agency based in Camp Hill.
"The prevailing attitude in society is that if you're disabled, you're unable to work," Ditto said.
Workers and supervisors at the Abilities Center know that's not true.
"One of the reasons I like working here is that people like coming to work," said Taylor's boss, food-services manager Wendy Ubil of Franklinville. "They're hard workers."
Nationally, about 44 percent of disabled Social Security beneficiaries surveyed recently by Mathematica Policy Research said they wanted to find a job - or a better-paying job - within five years.
"About 90 percent of people with a disability live on or below the federal poverty level," Ditto said. "They're not going to achieve what most people want: home ownership, travel, assets."
Beyond raising their standard of living, the disabled seek the personal satisfaction of working, Perron said.
"When you meet someone for the first time, the first thing you ask is what they do for a living," she said.
