One in eight U.S. adults say they have a disability in census poll

For the second month in a row, more than one in eight American adults report having a disability.

Almost 34 million Americans age 16 years and over have a disability, according to the Current Population Survey, a monthly poll of households conducted by the Census Bureau. The figure is up by more than 4.9 million over the past three years.

During the pandemic period, the share of U.S. women in the workforce with a disability has generally been outpacing the figure for men.

Last month, that gap narrowed. A record 3.6 million men had a disability in July, while the number of women reporting one fell by 81,000 from the peak of 3.35 million reached the previous month.

The survey defines a person with a disability who has at least one of the following conditions: is deaf or has serious difficulty hearing; is blind or has serious difficulty seeing even when wearing glasses; has serious difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions because of a physical, mental, or emotional condition; has serious difficulty walking or climbing stairs; has difficulty dressing or bathing; or has difficulty doing errands alone such as visiting a doctor’s office or shopping because of a physical, mental, or emotional condition.