Michael Bernick, former director of the California Employment Development Department and current employment attorney, and Louis Vismara, a founding member of the California Legislative Blue Ribbon Commission on Autism, are brutally honest about the challenges facing adults on the autism spectrum who want paying jobs. State programs set up to help disabled people get jobs often fail to fulfill their promise, especially for those with developmental disabilities. The universities who get millions in funding for autism research and the nonprofits who get millions in funding for social services largely fail to make an effort to hire people on the spectrum. The most successful autism hiring initiatives so far have been focused on adults with advanced tech skills, and it is reasonably estimated that only 10-15% of all adults on the spectrum would even be able to do those jobs with training.
Most state vocational rehab agencies have a much higher client to staff ratio than is recommended. People with low-functioning autism no longer have employment opportunities with the closure of sheltered workshops. As a result, even though most adults with autism would like to work, as little as 15% have full time jobs. Most end up spending their days isolated on the computer or in front of the TV, their opportunities for interpersonal growth stunted and their desire to live an independent life thwarted. Bernick and Vismara know this well, since both have sons on the spectrum, and go into detail about their employment challenges.
Many of the solutions to the autism unemployment crisis have been less than satisfactory. As mentioned before, the autism employment initiatives in the tech industry have so far led to the employment of only a small percentage of autistic people. Sheltered workshops usually pay subminimum wage, which has led to successful campaigns to close the workshops by disability rights activists. The goal is to have those people moved to integrated, competitive employment, but those who work in sheltered workshops almost always lack the skills for that. Requiring sheltered workshops to pay employees at least minimum wage would necessitate large subsidies by state and federal governments, which so far have been unwilling to commit the funding necessary.
Social enterprises dedicated to the employment of autistic people often fail to make a profit, and even those that do, like Rising Tide Car Wash, are not common enough to employ more than a very small percentage of autistic people. Initiatives to make workplaces in general more autism friendly fail to go far enough, and usually don’t focus on the real reasons autistic people struggle to get and retain jobs. State and federal programs designed to make the process of hiring disabled employees easier for departments of state and federal governments are largely not utilized, and quotas are often met by reclassifying existing employees with issues like diabetes and arthritis as disabled, instead of hiring employees with disabilities that cause the most difficulty in the job search.
Private businesses are generally unaware of the tax breaks and employee training assistance provided if they hire disabled employees, and even programs that provide fully subsidized employment for disabled employees are underutilized, as many employers simply don’t want to deal with developmentally disabled employees. With state vocational rehabilitation departments understaffed and overworked, autistic people who lack familial support in the job search are rarely successful.
The authors freely acknowledge that the road to employment will probably never be easy for most people on the spectrum, but they do suggest multiple reforms that would greatly increase the likelihood of autism employment. Among these suggestions is tying the funding that universities get for autism research and the funding that nonprofits get for social programs to employment quotas for autistic individuals, creating and strictly enforcing employment quotas for developmentally disabled individuals in state and federal government jobs, and reopening sheltered workshops with government subsidies that would pay all employees at least minimum wage. The authors consider greatly increased funding for vocational rehabilitation programs to be absolutely necessary, pointing out that the average case worker at a state vocational rehab agency has between 60 and 70 clients on their caseload, even though caseloads of more than 20 clients decreased chances of client success and the quality of help provided.
Of course, not all autistic people want to work, and for those with severe impairments, day habilitation may be a better fit. Here in Washington, individual supported employment is reimbursed at $75 per hour, while community inclusion is reimbursed at $35. Despite this, employment rates among those receiving DDA services remain at 12%, and only 10% of those 12% make a living wage. Vismara and Bernick do clarify that autism full employment should mean full employment for all those who want to work, not depriving people of needed supports because they struggle to work or prioritizing work over well-being.
As I read this book, it struck me that the best way to solve the autism unemployment crisis is to radically change our society’s view of those with developmental differences. Despite the government programs encouraging and providing financial incentives to hire disabled employees, many employers remain uninterested, convinced that having a developmentally disabled employee is not worth the “hassle.”
Initiatives to make workplaces more accepting of autism focus on the “friendlier” aspects of autism accommodation, such as dimming the lights and allowing employees to wear noise-canceling headphones, while ignoring the fact that autistic employees whose symptoms result in behavior such as hand-flapping, talking to oneself, not being able to carry on a reciprocal conversation, and perseveration, are often fired for those symptoms. Even if they are accommodated by their employers, they are frequently subjected to workplace bullying and harassment. Unfortunately, changing societal attitudes is a long, difficult process that often takes generations.
Autistic people usually possess traits and skills that would be valuable to many employers, such as loyalty, ability to do repetitious tasks without getting bored, attention to detail, and dedication. Autism employment initiatives in tech have found that teams of autistic employers are both more productive and more accurate compared to teams of largely neurotypical employees. This makes the autism unemployment crisis even more frustrating, because a segment of our society remains largely shut out of jobs that they could do and do well based primarily on employer prejudice and unwillingness to adapt to and accommodate developmental disabilities.As an autistic person, it is painful to realize that the only way an employer might hire someone else with my condition is if forced by a law mandating employment quotas. While better than unemployment, like most people I want a job where my contributions are valued. I don’t want to be considered a “diversity hire”, brought on as a part of corporate social responsibility. Yet if stereotypes prevent people like me from even getting our feet in the door, if prejudice against atypical people results in frequent job loss, and other, less coercive methods have largely failed to solve the problem, what else remains but employment quotas? Bernick and Vismara come to some uncomfortable conclusions, but the facts that led to these conclusions are undeniable. With an estimated 1 in 44 American children who have a formal diagnosis of autism, our society can’t wait around for employers to voluntarily change their attitudes towards people like us. It is both a moral and an economic imperative that we find sustainable, lasting solutions to the autism unemployment crisis, and The Autism Full Employment Act is a valuable resource for those seeking to understand the nature of the problem and the viability of various solutions.