A recent analysis by the Urban Institute found that while many communities across the US have committed to dismantling barriers to prosperity, every community could do more to support residents’ upward mobility from poverty.

Urban Institute’s Upward Mobility Framework can help local leaders in these communities understand and improve key conditions related to people’s economic success, dignity and belonging, and power and autonomy. Evidence shows these are critical to a person’s ability to rise out—and stay out—of poverty.

To advance equity for all, however, local leaders should address the additional barriers some groups face to upward mobility. People with disabilities are one of these groups.

Disabled people in the US—more than 1 in 4 adults—are twice as likely as their nondisabled counterparts to live in poverty. (In this post, we use the terms “disabled people” and “people with disabilities” interchangeably to employ both people-first and identity-first language. We recognize not all members of the community identify the same way and that language evolves.) Long-standing structural barriers in housing, health care, education, employment, and the justice system have limited disabled people’s access to upward mobility and excluded them from full participation in society.

Given these disparities, local leaders should prioritize embedding disability equity into their efforts to advance upward mobility to ensure they are inclusive and effective for all community members.

How structural barriers and biases prevent disabled people from achieving upward mobility

The barriers to upward mobility disabled people face are rooted in narratives around disabled people as less capable and a lack of recognition by others of their personhood. As a result, disabled people are often deprived of dignity and autonomy within their communities and excluded from decisionmaking about their personal and collective futures, including their own care and bodily autonomy. These narratives have also limited opportunities for economic success for people with disabilities.

In many cases, these barriers to upward mobility are codified into US law. Historically, forced institutionalization of both intellectually and physically disabled people was legal. It has only been 25 years since disabled people were recognized as full citizens with a right to determine where they live.

Disabled people are significantly less likely to be employed: only 23 percent of disabled people worked in 2023, compared with 66 percent of the nondisabled population. As the primary source of income for most Americans, work is a critically important avenue to move out of poverty. 

The Americans for Disabilities Act makes it illegal to discriminate against people with disabilities in employment, yet many legal barriers to upward mobility for disabled people remain. Under federal law, employers can pay people with disabilities less than the federal minimum wage ($7.25 per hour). Social security income—a source of financial security for 8.7 million disabled Americans (PDF)—has strict asset limits that keep many disabled people trapped in poverty and penalize people who get married or accrue meaningful savings.

These barriers are compounded by racial biases: disabled people with low incomes are more likely to be Black, Indigenous, and people of color (PDF) and to experience disability more acutely. Overpolicing, which is associated with lower levels of upward mobility, is experienced at higher rates by both people of color and autistic and intellectually disabled people, putting disabled people of color especially at risk. Further, disparities in access to health care—another critical driver of upward mobility—are heightened for disabled people of color who navigate both structural racism and disability discrimination in health care settings.

A disability-inclusive definition of upward mobility

The disability rights movement has long focused on enacting policies that advance dignity, autonomy, and economic success for disabled people—key elements of the definition of upward mobility from poverty.

Local leaders can look to efforts led by and for the disability community to learn how to include disability equity in their upward mobility actions:

• Respect people’s inherent dignity and value their contributions to the community. Dignity in the context of upward mobility includes people’s right to be respected and seen as integral to their community. For people with disabilities, this includes creating physical and societal structures that provide appropriate supports that enable and encourage participation in community.
  
  Centers for independent living (CILs) provide these supports and structures across multiple domains (PDF). Located in every state and designed and operated by people with disabilities, CILs can be a critical resource for local leaders seeking to bolster strategies for belonging within their communities.

• Give people the power and autonomy to make choices about their lives. The ability to make choices for one’s own life, and to influence larger policies and actions that affect one’s future, is vital for upward mobility. Disability rights advocates pioneered the concept “nothing about us without us” to emphasize the importance of engaging with and including people with disabilities in decisionmaking and choices over their own lives.

  For example, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) advocates for the inclusion of autistic and intellectually and developmentally disabled individuals in decisionmaking to ensure they have a voice in policy decisions that affect their lives and well-being. Communities working to advance upward mobility by pairing data with community engagement can use ASAN’s inclusive meetings toolkit to understand how to include autistic and other people with disabilities in upward mobility planning and action.

• Ensure local policies and practices provide the financial resources necessary for economic success. Upward mobility from poverty requires sustained access to financial resources to support material well-being and build opportunities to thrive. Communities can reduce poverty and promote financial security for disabled people by advocating for the removal of subminimum wage allowances and explicit income restrictions on federal and state programs. They can also implement local solutions like living wage laws, inclusive apprenticeships, and non-employment-based policies such as guaranteed basic income programs.

  Additionally, local leaders can work with disability-centric organizations, such as the Kelsey, to reduce the financial burden of day-to-day costs for disabled people. The Kelsey’s affordable, accessible housing model helps people with disabilities allocate monetary resources toward goals other than housing. Their partnerships with local workforce development organizations also help provide job training and employment services for people with disabilities.

By including disability equity in their efforts to advance upward mobility, local leaders can help create communities that value the contributions and success of all people, including those with disabilities.