The Council of State Governments
By Laura Tomaka
For nearly 40 years, South Dakota Rep. Fred Romkema has run a jobs training center for a segment of his state’s population that he says is too often forgotten. About 140 people with disabilities are currently served at the Northern Hills Training Center, and 108 of them are earning a regular paycheck.
Continue reading “Disabled, and able to work: With legislation and executive actions, states are doing more to improve job prospects of people with disabilities”By Jennifer Burnett
The Department of Labor has awarded $14,837,785 in grants to six states – California, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota and South Dakota – to improve employment opportunities for adults and youth with disabilities as part of the Disability Employment Initiative. The initiative awards grants to help increase the participation of adults and youth with disabilities in existing career pathway systems and other programs that bring together educational institutions, the private sector and disability advocates.
“Breaking down barriers to employment for people with disabilities is important in order for our country to field a full team and ensure that no worker is left behind,” said U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez in a press release. “The federal grants we’re awarding today will help open many more doors to opportunities, providing people with disabilities with skills they need to achieve economic self-sufficiency.”
In particular, those awarded grants will use the funding to:
This is the fifth round of grants through the initiative, which has funded 37 projects across 26 states.
To learn more about this initiative, visit the U.S. Department of Labor.
By Tim Anderson
Through a partnership with the federal government, and with each other in some cases, three states in the Midwest have launched initiatives to improve the educational and employment outcomes of young people with disabilities. These programs will establish new interventions for youths receiving Supplemental Security Income, or SSI.
North Dakota and South Dakota are part of a six-state consortium that received a U.S. Department of Education grant of $32.5 million. Those six states will enroll 2,000 low- income individuals between the ages of 14 and 16. Recruitment efforts will focus in part on rural and tribal areas. Enrollees will receive benefits counseling, financial training, work-based learning experiences and other intervention services. Wisconsin has received a stand-alone federal grant of $32.5 million.
One goal of these new programs is to reduce recipients’ long-term reliance on SSI. In the Midwest, SSI beneficiaries with disabilities account for between 2.5 percent of the state population (in Michigan, highest rate in the region) and 1.1 percent (North Dakota, lowest rate in the Midwest). The U.S. average is 2.2 percent, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. With the exception of Michigan and Ohio, states in the region fall below the U.S. rate.