If you are a person with a disability, either temporary or permanent, who could have continued in employment if your employer how agreed to a reasonable accommodation to allow you to carry out the essential functions of your job, but your employer refused and instead terminated you, or harassed you into resigning, you are not alone. Unfortunately, too many employers just cannot be bothered to make any reasonable accommodations to allow workers to keep working. Supervisors and those with the authority to hire and fire, either set aside their own personal sympathy to fall into line with an employer’s frequently illegal rules of “No Exceptions”, fearing for their own job security if they lobby to expand what could be certain illegal parameters of a “No Exceptions” rule; or else they have no cognizant sympathy for a worker with a disability (until of course, they themselves get cancer, have a serious leg impairment, or receive a diagnosed heart condition, etc.) Unscrupulous employers will sometimes begin issuing unjustified negative evaluations of the employee’s work to lay a bogus paper trail in case they subsequently have to defend on a discrimination claim. See Employee Performance Evaluations.
If You Quit Your Job, You May Lose Right to Prevail in a Lawsuit
If your employer discriminates against you because of a disability, you should contact this office immediately for a free consultation. In many instances of discrimination, if you quit your job, or are terminated, you may lose right to prevail in a lawsuit unless you first take certain legally required measures to preserve your job while you are still employed. If you are thinking of handing in a resignation letter, or think you will be fired, or have been terminated, you should contact this office today for a free consultation to discuss your options.
Shocking Statistics Comparing Workers With/Without Disabilities
In the United States the adult employment population ratio for those without a disability is over sixty-five percent. However, among those with a disability, the employment ratio is under twenty-three percent. Too frequently this disparity, this low employment rate (an approximate two-thirds disparity) is not by the disabled person’s choice. This disparity encompasses those who were employed, but the employer refused to make a reasonable accommodation for the person to allow them to remain employed.
In 2024, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that 44 million people, about 13% of the U.S. population, have a disability. They define disability as individuals with hearing, vision, cognitive, walking, self-care, or independent living difficulties. The Census Bureau uses the American Community Survey (ACS) to gather this information.
Unemployment Statistics:
The unemployment rate for people with a disability was 7.2 percent in 2023, about twice that of those with no disability (3.5 percent). Unemployed people are those who did not have a job, were available for work, and were actively looking for a job in the 4 weeks preceding the government survey.
In 2024, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the employment population ratio (the proportion of the population that is employed) was only 22.7 percent among those with a disability. However, among those adults without a disability, the employment population ratio for those without a disability was 65.5 percent.
The Bureau reported that among the total of persons with no disabilities, there are 15,364,500,000 persons with no disabilities who are employed. But among total persons who have disabilities, there are 770,100,000 who are employed.
Managers who reported having a disability have distinctly low employment rate compared to their non-disabled counterparts. Among those who listed their occupation as “manager”, the disparity of the employment population ratio between those without disabilities and those with a disability is prominent according to government statistics.
Employers may illegally retaliate for taking time off for your or a family member’s medical care. See New Jersey Employment Unlawful Retaliation Attorney. The Federal Family and Medical Leave Act Employers and the New Jersey Family Leave Act defines the parameters and circumstances qualifying one for such leave. Several prerequisites, including that the employer must employ the requisite number of employees to be subject to the Act, must first be met before an employee becomes eligible under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) or the New Jersey Family Leave Act. New Jersey Disability Discrimination Lawyer.
Persons with a disability, or who had a temporary disability, have a right to be employed! Persons with disabilities have a civil right to employment as much as any non-disabled person has a right to employment. If you are an employee who became temporarily or permanently disabled and requested a reasonable accommodation so you can perform the essential functions of your job, and your employer began giving you unjustified poor performance evaluations, starting shutting you out of meetings, assigned you a new unreasonable workload you had never been previously assigned, you are not alone. Unfortunately, these are tactics that an unsavvy employer may use to pressure an employee into resigning. See Employment Attorney, I Was Put on a PIP: the Dangers of a PIP.
There are stereotypes which leads employers to believe that persons with disabilities will be not be able to take on and advance in complex tasks and responsibilities and supervise others because of perceived limitations which have no basis in fact, but they are associated with disability in general or with specific chronic health condition stereotypes. These misconceptions serve as a justification for discriminatory employment practices. Managers who reported having a disability have distinctly low employment rate compared to their non-disabled counterparts according to government statistics.
If you experienced a change in the workplace after you returned from a disability leave, there may be unsubstantiated assumptions by your employer that you no longer are able to perform the essential responsibilities of your job with or without an accommodation. As the United States Supreme Court has noted, certain types of disabilities such as cancer, heart disease, seizures, etc., evoke stereotypical fears that perpetuate discrimination against those having those disabilities in all aspects of life, including employment. The sociological history of these disabilities, as seen within the context of ignorant superstitions, and decades, even centuries old cultural myths, provides a salient example that fear is the main driver of discrimination against persons with the disability rather than the disability itself. See NJ Disability Attorney, When Employers Discriminate More Against Female Workers with Cancer than Men.
Don’t Sit on Your Rights
I have represented public and private employees who were pushed out of jobs because of their disability or because they requested a reasonable accommodation and was successful in recovering financial compensation for their emotional pain and suffering and moneys for lost wages, both for past lost wages and projected future lost wages. If you think you are being pushed out of your job because of your disability, you should contact this office immediately for a free consultation. I accept discrimination and whistleblower cases from all over New Jersey and have locations in Southern, Central and Northern NJ to meet with clients.
Hope A. Lang, Attorney at Law represents workers throughout the entire state, including Hackensack, Jersey City, Newark, Irvington, Orange, East Orange, Trenton, Paterson, Montclair, Elizabeth, North Brunswick, Cherry Hill, Vineland, Union, Plainfield, Hamilton Township, Lakewood, Edison, Parsippany-Troy Hills, Franklin, Lakewood, and every NJ County, including Bergen, Hudson, Middlesex, Essex, Monmouth, Somerset, Ocean, Union, Camden, Passaic, Morris, Gloucester, Atlantic, Burlington, Camden Counties.