“Earnings” are the total income from work before deductions. They include wages, salary, overtime, commissions, bonuses, and tips. Deductions—such as taxes and health insurance—reduce your take-home pay. Section 5 looks at earnings for full-time, full-year workers ages 18–64, comparing those with and without disabilities using 2024 American Community Survey data. In 2024, the median earnings for workers with disabilities were $50,762, compared to $60,915 for workers without disabilities—a gap of just over $10,000. This means workers with disabilities earn about 83 cents for every dollar earned by those without disabilities. Over a 47-year career, that difference adds up to about $470,000 (in 2024 dollars).
This difference in earnings could be for a number of reasons. Educational attainment (how far you go in school) has usually been a reliable way to predict earnings and could be one of the reasons. Disability status can influence how far you go in school1, and how far you go in school can affect your earnings. This is partially because education can affect the type of work (occupation or industry) that is available to you. The following map tells us how much more or less of their money people with disabilities earn compared to those without disabilities in each state of the United States.
Earnings gap for people with disabilities compared to people without disabilities
Map Description: The map helps us see how much people with disabilities earn compared to those without disabilities. It uses shades to show the difference in gap in median earnings between people with and without disabilities. The information for this map comes from Table 5.1 Earnings - Annual Median Earnings Full-Time, Full-Year Civilian Workers Ages 18-64 with and without Disabilities (in 2024 Inflation-Adjusted Dollars): 2024.
About the Annual Disability Statistics Compendium
Disability statistics help teach everyone about the lives of people with disabilities. These statistics help check how well government programs work and suggest changes to people who make the rules. The Annual Disability Statistics Compendium collates important information about people with disabilities in the United States—including all states, Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, and in some sections outlying territories. It includes data from multiple government agencies and programs. The Compendium gathers these statistics together, making it easy for everyone to find and use.
The Compendium focuses on people with disabilities who are between the ages of 18 and 64. It has information like:
The total number of people with disabilities in the United States by disability type
The top industry and occupations of employed people with disabilities
How many people with disabilities participate in social insurance programs such as Social Security Disability Insurance
Along with the Compendium, you can access the following documents:
The Annual Report for People with Disabilities in America uses data from the American Community Survey (ACS) to show changes in employment, education, health care, and financial stability over time among people with disabilities.
The Build Your Own Statistics tool is a web-based table maker for people wanting intersectional demographic statistics about people with and without disabilities.
Three topical Infographics which are curated with experts on the experiences of three different intersections of people with disabilities: people with disabilities living in rural areas, African American/Black people with disabilities, and veterans with disabilities.
New This Year
New section added
We introduce our second Expansion and Compilation section made in collaboration with our partners at the American Foundation for the Blind, Dr. Sarahelizabeth Baguhn and Dr. Arielle Silverman. Expansion and Compilation B: Blind and Low Vision Ages 55+ builds upon Expansion and Compilation A by presenting statistics only found in this section on people with blindness and vision disabilities, age 55 and older in the United States. Knowing this information can help us understand who is at risk of living in group home-type residences. We encourage readers to explore the ways their experiences mirror or diverge from the broader population as presented in these tables.
Notes on the Data
The Compendium is a compilation of information gathered from various places like the Social Security Administration (SSA), Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA), the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS), and others. Most, but not all, of these data sources are updated yearly. Data schedules also vary by source. Some are released on a calendar year basis, others by program or academic years. We use the most recent data available.
The Compendium uses the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) for most of its tables. The ACS uses six questions to figure out if a person has a disability. Each question has two possible answers: “Yes” or “No.” Within this data, a response of “Yes” to any of the questions means that the person has a disability. The six types of disability are vision, hearing, cognitive, ambulatory, self-care, and independent living.
| Disability Type |
|---|
| Hearing |
| Vision |
| Cognitive |
| Ambulatory |
| Self-Care |
| Independent Living |
Sometimes, the categories we use don’t give us all the details we might want. For example, the cognitive disability category doesn’t tell us whether the disability is related to a brain injury or a developmental disability.
About the Tables
Understanding how many people are in a group is important, but it is also important to know how certain we are about that information. Survey data from the U.S. Census Bureau are used to estimate these numbers. Because surveys rely on samples, all statistics are estimates. Each estimate includes a margin of error, which shows the possible range of values. Larger margins mean more uncertainty. To make comparisons clearer, we include relative ratios in most tables. Relative ratios make it easier to compare groups of different sizes. A ratio above 1 means people with disabilities experience something more often than those without disabilities (see Glossary for details).
Additional Resources
- Build your own disability statistics at https://www.researchondisability.org/annual-disability-statistics-collection
- Find the Annual Report on People with Disabilities in America and all three infographics at at www.researchondisability.org
- Access our FAQ (frequently asked questions) page at www.researchondisability.org/faq
- For help finding or interpreting specific statistics, please email us at disability.statistics@unh.edu or call (603) 862-4320.
Suggested Citation. Thomas, N., Kingsbury, S., Lansing, J., & Houtenville, A. (2026). Annual Disability Statistics Compendium: 2026 Durham, NH: University of New Hampshire, Institute on Disability.
[1] Sevak, P., Houtenville, A. J., Brucker, D. L., & O’Neill, J. (2015). Individual Characteristics and the Disability Employment Gap. Journal of Disability Policy Studies, 26(2), 80-88. https://doi.org/10.1177/1044207315585823 (Original work published 2015).