Disabled workers can be an asset in the workplace, if given a chance

Aaron McKinney stacked big birthday buttons on a shelf at the Just-A-Buck store at Maymore Plaza in South Euclid.”I’ve got a great job,” he said, opening a box of merchandise.That might be an understatement.
A few months earlier, McKinney was stuffing bags in a workshop for the developmentally disabled. He found the work tedious. Sitting at the same station most of the day irked him. He didn’t get a steady paycheck.

Even in the best of times, people with disabilities have had unemployment rates at least 50 percent higher than the overall rate. During the recession and the recovery, the gap has widened, with jobless rates for the disabled sometimes nearly 90 percent higher.

Many advocates for people with disabilities say the situation is even bleaker than it appears. Discouraged, many of these job-seekers have given up and turned to disability insurance benefits, which have seen a jump in applications in recent years.

Such high unemployment was among the reasons the Cuyahoga County Board of Developmental Disabilities opened the store at 4507 Mayfield Road a year ago today. The board opened its first dollar store at 1844 Snow Road in Parma’s Midtown Shopping Center more than three years ago. A third store is scheduled for Rocky River next year.

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