Across the Aisle: Support for Entrepreneurs with Disabilities Must Be Bipartisan

People with disabilities are the only minority group that anyone could enter at any time. About one in four American adults has a disability, which the Americans with Disabilities Act defines as an impairment that “substantially limits one or more major life activities.” Someone who has had a disability in the past or who is seen by others as having such an impairment is also considered disabled under the ADA.

The employment landscape for disabled people is bleak. In 2020, only 17.9 percent of people with disabilities were employed, compared with 61.8 percent of non-disabled people. There are several reasons why people with disabilities may have difficulty accessing traditional forms of employment. They may have special transportation needs or health conditions that would prevent them from doing certain kinds of work. They may require accommodations to perform a job, which can be costly. Employers may be biased against hiring people with disabilities, even though discriminating against qualified individuals with disabilities is illegal.

As a group, people with disabilities are significantly more likely to live in poverty than people without disabilities. People with disabilities want to work, and they should have the opportunity. Employment can improve mental health and offer a sense of purpose; since people with disabilities are integral members of our society, they deserve to reap these benefits.

Entrepreneurship is an alternative

A traditional 9-to-5 job is not the only way to close the employment gap. People with disabilities are more likely to choose self-employment than the general population, and are more likely to start their own businesses. Entrepreneurship is a viable option for many people with disabilities--but it’s also an under-studied one. There is an urgent need for greater investment in entrepreneurship education for people with disabilities, and government support is critical to these services. Since disability can affect anyone at any time, disability is inherently bipartisan, and support for entrepreneurs with disabilities must come from both sides of the political aisle.

Entrepreneurship can allow people with disabilities to be their own boss. Self-employment can allow for greater flexibility and the ability to set the conditions in which they work, which is crucial for a population that is often shut out of more traditional--and less accessible--workforce options.

What exists today and what needs to be done

There are a variety of services designed to help people with disabilities seek and retain employment, but they are not centralized, and most do not cater to aspiring entrepreneurs. In the United States, vocational rehabilitation (VR) services are administered at the federal and state levels and supplemented by outside support agencies such as the Artfully Gifted Foundation (AGF). When vocational rehabilitation systems are disjointed, entrepreneurs with disabilities fall through the cracks. There is a real need for a unified vision to connect the disparate elements of the VR landscape to better serve this population.

The formation of the Artfully Gifted Foundation is a good example of what this process could look like. It was born out of necessity: the state-funded Vocational Incubator Program of Chicago (VIP), a pilot program that provided entrepreneurship education to young adults with disabilities, and the Add Us In Initiative were scheduled to end in July 2016, which would have left about 30 entrepreneurs with disabilities in the lurch. The Artfully Gifted Foundation continues to support these entrepreneurs and others by providing business plan writing services, office space, ongoing mentorship, marketing support, a retail store, an e-commerce site, grant funding, and more.

While this foundation is uniquely positioned to continue to fill the gaps in the service landscape, there is still a need for more support. The foundation works closely with vocational rehabilitation counselors: an AGF member coordinates with a VR counselor to have self-employment listed as the client’s Individualized Plan for Employment (IPE) goal. There is a lack of VR counselors with expertise in entrepreneurship, however, and entrepreneurship proposals require more frequent communication between a client and their VR counselor than other types of employment goals. It is challenging for a private foundation without state support like AGF to coordinate with entrepreneurs’ VR counselors on a consistent basis.

Having a cohort of VR counselors who are familiar with entrepreneurship cases and can review them as a team would greatly benefit aspiring entrepreneurs with disabilities. A single VR counselor wholly dedicated to entrepreneurship cases would also go a long way towards supporting entrepreneurs. Making aspects of the state-run business incubator program viable again would also allow for more robust community-based services for this population. Bringing back staff positions from the VIP such as the business planning instructor and business incubator director would help entrepreneurs make business plans that are more likely to succeed.

Government support is crucial: bipartisanship counts

With the right support, the AGF has the potential to help entrepreneurs beyond the Chicago area. The foundation could bridge the gap between disability services available to urban and rural communities. AGF could serve people in central and southern Illinois in addition to its current work in Chicago, and it can do so at an extremely low cost.

Government support for entrepreneurship initiatives benefits all parties involved. VR legislation, broadly speaking, has been passed under both Republican and Democratic administrations. Self-employment is relatively new territory for VR, but the guiding principles of entrepreneurship map to both conservative and liberal values. Promoting entrepreneurship is not just about encouraging people to ‘pull themselves up by their bootstraps,’ but also empowers clients to see a project through and provides them with greater access to opportunities. Bipartisan support is necessary to improve the entire VR structure to better support entrepreneurship.

Not all entrepreneurs will succeed in their business ventures, but those who go through this process will receive exceptional vocational training. They will be better prepared to pursue their goals or seek employment than before, and they will realize that they have what it takes to succeed at their highest individual level.