March 3, 2013
Sequester Threatens to Cut Jobs for Disabled Government Workers
While the looming federal budget cuts, also known as the sequester, will undoubtedly affect many American jobs and programs, one of the most vulnerable to such cuts will be disabled government workers.
While Americans most likely to lose their job if Congress and the White House do not reach a deal will simply search for other job opportunities, for workers with severe mental and physical disabilities that option isn’t so readily available. The sequester, which would slash $85 billion, would put millions of disabled workers out of a job–something economists say would not be a good idea.
According to labor experts, keeping disabled workers on payroll makes sense because it saves the federal government an average of $4,657 in reduced or eliminated disability and healthcare benefits. The threat of job loss now as part of the sequester follows four years of serious decline in employment American workers with disabilities, who lost jobs three times the rate of the general population during the recession.