Christopher Brennan, 25, has an intellectual disability and works part-time as a landscaper.
As Covid-19 began spreading throughout the United States in early March, Christopher Brennan found himself out of not one, but two jobs.
Brennan, 25, has intellectual disabilities, and had been working both part-time as a landscaper and as an employee at a rock climbing gym in Richmond, Virginia. Once the pandemic began, the gym closed, and continuing to landscape among numerous other people seemed too risky - his mother, who he lives with, is immunocompromised with multiple sclerosis.
Christopher Brennan and his mother Elisabeth.
For many, working two jobs can be challenging. For Brennan, finding himself unemployed has proven far more difficult.
"They give him self worth and self-confidence," his mom, Elisabeth Brennan, said.
It's the same story for workers with disabilities across the United States, many of whom were laid off, furloughed or forced to stop working because of the health implications associated with catching Covid-19. Making matters worse: when it comes to unemployment, those same individuals were already disproportionately represented in the labor market before the pandemic began.
According to the US Labor Bureau of Statistics, in 2019, the unemployment rate for people with disabilities was 7.3%. In 2020, it jumped to 12.6%. People with disabilities represented only 20% of the labor market. Since the pandemic began in March, 1 in 5 workers with disabilities lost their employment, compared with 1 in 7 for their able-bodied peers. In all, nearly one million jobs have been lost in the disabled community.
Elizabeth Redford, executive director and cofounder of the nonprofit The Next Move Program, has seen the decline first hand. Her group partners with businesses to create guided internship experiences for young adults with disabilities throughout Central Virginia. They also help the people they work with on job readiness skills, resume building, and employment.
The Next Move Program leaders and some of their students.
Until Covid-19 hit.
Now, it’s come to a screeching halt as the program's business partners have all shut down. Redford has also seen the majority of her former and current students - like Brennan, who has benefitted from The Next Move Program since 2014 - lose their internships and jobs. Even as states reopen, Redford said students like hers would be the last to be brought back into the workforce because they aren't considered essential workers.
"It means our students are at home, they're not engaged in the community and the skills they have, social, academic and vocational are not being put to use," Redford said. "Which can result in not only regression but the loss of skills over time."
Redford has taken stock of one group who has remained employed throughout the pandemic: grocery store employees with disabilities. But regulations controlling how many hours they can work and still qualify for Medicaid has been a persistent issue.
"Some of our young adults who work as cashiers, or stock shelves in grocery stores, are asked to work more than usual, and it's jeopardizing their SSI benefits," Redford said.
Christopher Brennan and Kemani, another student with The Next Move Program, selling cookies they ... [+]
For students and alumni who have been furloughed or laid off, there is some hope. tABLEspoons, a program created as part of The Next Move Program in 2017, teaches students how to cook and bake, culinary skills that can be used in the workforce. The program will be hiring alumni like Brennan as full-time employees, to bake cookies, prepare orders and ship deliveries.
"We've been providing online remote training for them and assisting them with ServSafe training to become food handlers," Redford said. "We have two young adults who are graduates who will be starting with us as team members next month and three more who are starting with us in September."
Brennan has volunteered with tABLEspoons for the past two years and is eager to start working again.
"I'm excited," he said. "It gives me something to do, and I've enjoyed it since I started."
Christopher Brennan mades cookies with tABLEspoons.
Meanwhile, as Redford works to provide Brennan and others with opportunities, she encourages businesses not to forget about their employees with special needs as they begin reopening.
"There are so many things to worry about in the community right now, but we want to make sure our young adults with diverse abilities stay on top of mind for everybody," she said.
A previous version of this story misstated the unemployment rate for people with disabilities in 2019. While 80% of people with disabilities were unemployed in 2019, the actual unemployment rate for people with disabilities was 7.3%.
