By proclamation of the President of the United States of America, each October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month. This long-standing tradition of recognizing the importance of employment for people with disabilities goes all the way back to 1945 when Congress designated the first week of October as National Employ the Physically Handicapped week. Since then, the President has expanded the awareness campaign from just the first week of October to the entire month and adopted “people first” language, giving us National Disability Employment Awareness Month.
In honor of NDEAM, we focus this Inside Ticket cover story on how Ticket to Work Program is an integral part of raising the public’s awareness of employment needs for people with disabilities. As we work together to improve disability employment infrastructure and outcomes, we know that people with disabilities remain unemployed and underemployed at disproportionate rates compared to the general population. The Ticket to Work Program continues to build partnerships designed to assist people with disabilities to find gainful employment across the nation.
The 2011 official NDEAM theme is “Profit by Investing in Workers with disabilities”. The theme honors the contributions of workers with disabilities and serves to inform the public that they represent a highly skilled talent pool that can help employers compete in today’s global economy.
