Nearly 99% of U.S. Autistic Adults no employment services

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Hardly any adults with autism are receiving supports to help them find or keep a job, new research shows, and even among the few who do, the services are often far too short-term.

Some 1.98 million working-age individuals on the spectrum — or almost 99% — accessed no employment supports through Medicaid or vocational rehabilitation between 2008 and 2016, according to findings published this month in the journal The Milbank Quarterly.

Researchers combed data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the U.S. Department of Education’s Rehabilitation Services Administration, which administers the vocational rehabilitation program, to assess usage of employment services among those with autism ages 14 to 64. They found that just shy of 22,700 working-age individuals with autism were served in 2016, a number that the study authors described as “alarmingly low.”

“It is difficult for me to wrap my brain around exactly how few people are receiving public employment services,” said Anne Roux, a research scientist at Drexel University’s A.J. Drexel Autism Institute who led the study.

During the time period studied, vocational rehabilitation provided employment services to eight times as many people with autism as Medicaid. Likewise, spending on Medicaid employment services dropped almost 30% while it grew nearly 400% for vocational rehabilitation, according to the findings.

That’s notable, the researchers said, since vocational rehabilitation supports are much more short-term in nature.

Public spending, as a whole, is going toward short-term employment services, even though many autistic people are likely to need some level of flexible, longer-term supports across the working years,” Roux said.

The consequences of limited access to employment services go well beyond the ability to earn a paycheck, the study notes, since employment is often an indicator of health and well-being.

Major policy changes are needed to improve employment services for those with autism, the researchers said.

The main problem is autism in people is not constant.

Rather we have good days and bad days

Many of us have other things going on like stimming and ADHD that are VERY distracting.

It’s not our fault but it’s not the bosses either as they are not a charity they pay someone to do a job that they are not always able to do or may do it less efficiently than someone else with another type of disability.

I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been fired for not concentrating and making mistakes over the years.

Employment and autism is not a simple thing the autism usually gets in the way of doing the job

That's probably more a lack of societal support. The low rate of employment is pretty ridiculous when you consider the other disorders that have better rates than we do. I mean seriously, OCD, schizophrenia and bipolar are all wiping the floor with us, even though there's no guarantee of health care in the US beyond the bare minimum at the emergency room.

Even those of us that don't generally get fired can have a massive struggle to get any job at all, let alone one with decent pay matching our training and ability.

There may be an easy explanation for the difference with disorders

OCD - can mean anything and can be mild allowing the person to still work. It’s also curable at least for a while

schizophrenia and the other psychotics - Treatable with drugs in the medium term allowing the person to work. Many may only be in low paid temporary work anyway which can make it look like they have permanent employment rather than in multiple crappy jobs one after the other (been there)

The neurosis conditions i.e depression, anxiety etc - barely worth mentioning as can be mild, treatable with drugs and therapy

Autism- A condition that can manifest in multiple ways where the high functioning aspie may be able to suppress many of the co morbids to people who spend along time stimming, memory problems, difficulty dealing with people, crushing anxiety, concentration problems and that’s just the mild stuff that can change on a daily basis

In summary the key difference is time in-between negative symptom recurrence or event spikes, all the others can be measured in months or years, allowing stable periods to work or even have a career. Autism however maybe hours or days for many people making it much more difficult if not impossible.

The main positive since Covid is there is more working from home which kind of supersedes the open office that mona wanted to see gone.

This will help more aspies get work (I currently work from home)

Those with more severe forms of autism will likely never be able to hold down a job even if they have a normal IQ.

Until there’s a medical way to address most of the negative symptoms that lead to us being less efficient unreliable employees

I may have misspoken. The apparent fact that employment rates are higher for those groups wasn't really my point, it's the degree of difference that was of note. There's no way that those are so much more easily treated or less stigmatized in comparison that the differences in rates are justifiable on those bases alone. There are a great deal of jobs out there that could be done by autistic people that are arbitrarily shut out.

That being said, I'm sure there will be a gap for the foreseeable future, and possibly always, but there's no justification for it being so large.

. it's the degree of difference that was of note.

Same principle applies length of stable period directly linked to good times allowing growth in that person’s life.

Partly why the anti cure / treatment brigade is so cruel in wanting to keep people down when they may be fine themselves.

Lots of autistic people are in work including myself they just happen to be mostly aspies who get by and found a way to navigate using their strengths.

What % are ASD 2 &3 and how severe are they effected each day or hour?

This is competitive employment do the job every day or get fired, it’s very hard very few autistic people can manage it

I can't agree with this. You greatly underestimate just how much damage can come of those periods of turbulence. It doesn't take that much to wind up on psychiatric hold or on a permanent watch list. Having periods of stability in the meantime doesn't really mean much.

As far as curing goes, that's not happening anytime soon. And that's regardless of whether or not it's ok ethically or not. Referring to people opposed to cures as cruel isn't helpful. At least you folks get recognition. Dinner of us might not even get that much, and certainly aren't in line for any assistance or treatments that are developed. Most of this is a lack of accommodations as this is hardly the only impacted disorder and there's plenty of folks that would be enjoyable with support