Another Perspective: Capturing the Working-Age Population With Disabilities in Survey Measures

A new criticism of the variety in measures serving to identify the disabled population in the American Community Survey (ACS) has been raised by Burkhauser, Houtenville, and Tennant. That criticism identifies the lack of a participation component, specifically a measure of work limitation, as creating bias resulting in an underestimate of the size of the working-age population with disabilities. The purpose of this article is to provide another perspective on the relationship of the current ACS measure and a work limitation measure demonstrating the complications introduced by combining measures that represent two different metrics and introducing an unmeasured environmental element. The relationship of the measures with receipt of Social Security Disability Insurance or Supplemental Security Insurance is also examined and discussed.