Disability Statistics
In my last post, I defined what a disability was and what it may look like for us as content creators, small business owners. I wanted to find out more about why people should be more inclusive with their content, so I started diving into the statistics of social media statistics (which I will share in my next post).
I also had to look into the statistics about how disabilities and the disability stats were a bit shocking, but then not so shocking because there's at least 3 members in my immediate family that has a disability.
Disability is not just a health problem. It is a complex phenomenon reflecting the interaction between features of a person’s body and features of the society in which s/he lives in.
This quote by World Health Organization to me really emulates the definition of disability because it really does go beyond just a health problem. I mean I would consider myself a completely normal person, but there are certain parts of me, that doesn't quite work with today's society. But let's rebuke what is normal, because nothing should be normal. Normal is boring.
Most people don't realize how many people have disabilities because they are more often invisible than not. If you break down these numbers to a small team of people that work together. For instance, there are 10 members on your team, it's quite possible that about 6 of your team members have a disability of some sort.
REAL TALK
My disabilities are invisible UNLESS you can see my cochlear implant and/or hearing aid, which is highly unlikely because my hair is usually down. On top of that, most people that know me fairly well, do tend to forget that I'm deaf mostly because I talk fairly well!
My coworkers forgot all the time. It became super annoying at times because I think to myself, how do you forget that I'm deaf. Like come on!!! However, if we were to talk about a disability such as a learning disability, I think that's easier to forget because it's likely that the person doesn't bring it up hardly ever unless it affects their work.
The thing I like to remind myself if I ever get frustrated with someone because they forget or don't realize it. I have to remind myself that I believe they are doing the best they can at that time.
There are 7.7 BILLION people in this world. and 1 billion of us live with some form of a disability. That's 1/7th of the world's population. So when I bring these numbers up... why shouldn't you want to make sure your content reaches beyond what you know.
Since being deaf is a huge part of who I am. I wanted to find out more statistics about hearing loss. I was born deaf, so I don't know what it's like to be hearing. However, these statistics say that in about 30 years from now, for every 10 people, at least ONE will have a disabling hearing loss. Currently, about 5% of the world's population has a disabling hearing loss, that equates to 466 million. So that number nearly doubles in the next 30 years. WHOA!!!
REAL TALK
(This is my way of saying, hey on a side note…because I don’t typically stay on topic!)
My dad asked me a few months ago, if they could fix my usher's syndrome with stem cell research. I actually hesitated for a few minutes there. I said, honestly no I wouldn't want them to fix it. I honestly cannot imagine being hearing, having the 100% hearing that they could fix.. because dang, I feel like the world is SO LOUD even when I wear my hearing aid/cochlear, which doesn't even put me on par with what hearing people hear! HOWEVER, if they could just fix my vision... I'd gladly take it.
So... here's a question for you? Would you rather be DEAF or BLIND? (I'm one of those people that got the short end of the stick and have both!)
Let's dive into MONEY TALK!! Within the global market, people with disabilities have a spending power of more than $6 trillion dollars. I can't even count how many zeros and commas that would be.
But I want us to focus on the U.S. market because that’s where my primary audience is right now. According to research done by the American Institutes of Research (AIR), the total after-tax disposable income for working-age people with disabilities is $490 billion (this is comparable to the African American & Hispanic market.)
Let’s dive in even further: discretionary income for working-age people with disabilities is about $21 billion, greater than the 2 segments combined! (Discretionary income is the amount of money remaining after taxes, other mandatory charges, and expenditures on necessary items.. it goes beyond basic needs of food, housing, healthcare, etc.)
Do you feel like you may be missing out on an audience?
This doesn’t even factor in the fact that I think most of us that have a disability are quite awesome, and you just might be missing out on some really awesome, super cool people.
Within the U.S. there are 327 MILLION people and of that population, 20% (or 65 MILLION) people have some kind of disability. And another fact is that disabilities are actually more common among women, older people, children and adults who are poor.
REAL TALK
As I share these numbers, I'm not doing it to gain any sort of sympathy or pity. I'm showing you these numbers to have you be aware that this isn't a ONE-OFF kind of thing, it's more common than you realize. It may even actually be closer to home than you realize.
Here’s a thought… most often people’s lives aren’t affected by someone with a disability until they have their own kids. When my parents had the 3 of us girls, they led a relatively "NORMAL" life. After realizing that 2 of their girls were deaf, they knew they had to make some major changes in their lives to ensure the best that they could provide for us. In turn, they made decisions that truly affected the rest of their lives, our lives... and I'd like to say that it happened for a reason.
So that’s a wrap on disability statistics.
