Volume 35, Number 4 (Fall) 2000
DeLeire, Thomas. 2000. "The Wage and Employment Effects of the Americans with Disabilities Act." Journal of Human Resources 35(4):693-715.
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) is analyzed in terms of its effects on the employment and wages of disabled men using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation. The results indicate that, as early as 1990,epmloyment rates of men with disabilities decreased dramatically and continued to decrease through the beginning of 1995. On average over the post-ADA period, employment of men with disabilities was 7.2 percentage points lower than before the act was passed. In addition, wages of disabled men did not change with the passage of the ADA.
Thomas DeLeire is an assistant professor in the Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago. Helpful comments were provided by Tom MaCurdy, John Pencavel, Mark McClellan, Gary Becker, Jay Bhattacharya, Dan Black, Richard Burkhauser, Jennifer Eagleton, Brigitte Madrian, Will Manning, and anonymous referee, and seminar participants at Chicago, Stanford, Wisconsin, Johns Hopkins, RAND, Syracuse, the Chicago/Northwestern Joint Center for Poverty Research, and the 1998 Midwestern Economics Meetings. The author gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of the Sloan Foundation. The data used in this article can be obtained beginning May 2001 through April 2004 from Thomas DeLeire, Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago, 1115 East 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637; e-mail: t-deleire@uchicago.edu .
© 2002 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
US ISSN 0022-166X