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Unemployment rate for people with a disability rose to 8.3 percent in 2025

March 05, 2026

In 2025, the unemployment rate for people with a disability rose to 8.3 percent—about double the 4.1-percent rate for those without a disability. Over the year, the rate increased by 0.8 percentage point for people with a disability, compared with a 0.3-percentage point increase for those without a disability.

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Annual average unemployment rates of people 16 years and over by disability status
Year	With a disability	With no disability
2009	14.5	9.0
2010	14.8	9.4
2011	15.0	8.7
2012	13.4	7.9
2013	13.2	7.1
2014	12.5	5.9
2015	10.7	5.1
2016	10.5	4.6
2017	9.2	4.2
2018	8.0	3.7
2019	7.3	3.5
2020	12.6	7.9
2021	10.1	5.1
2022	7.6	3.5
2023	7.2	3.5
2024	7.5	3.8
2025	8.3	4.1
Note: Annual estimates for 2025 are 11-month averages that exclude October. Data for October 2025 were not collected due to the federal government shutdown.

The jobless rate for people with a disability has been about twice that of people with no disability since 2014. However, 2020 was an exception. The unemployment rate in 2020 was 12.6 percent for people with a disability and 7.9 percent for those without a disability.

These data are from the Current Population Survey. For more information, see “People with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics — 2025.” For more statistics on people with a disability, see our Disability page.

SUGGESTED CITATION

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, Unemployment rate for people with a disability rose to 8.3 percent in 2025 at https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2026/unemployment-rate-for-people-with-a-disability-rose-to-8-3-percent-in-2025.htm (visited March 05, 2026).

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