Under the Americans with Disability Act, a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, a person who has a history or record of such an impairment, or a person who is perceived by others as having such an impairment.
Even though persons with a disability experience lower levels of employment and wages, their situation has improved since 2020. Unemployment rates have improved from 12.6% to 10.1%, or an improvement of 1.5%. Similarly, persons without a disability saw their unemployment rate improve from 7.9 to 5.1%, an improvement for 2.8%. The overall unemployment rate is 3.6%. and was 2.2 percentage points lower than in May 2021. (BLS, 2021)
Persons with a disability were more likely to work in service occupations than those with no disability (18.2 percent, compared with 15.9 percent). Workers with a disability were also more likely than those with no disability to work in production, transportation, and material moving occupations (14.6 percent, compared with 12.6 percent) and sales and office occupations (21.4 percent, compared with 19.7 percent). Persons with a disability were less likely to work in management, professional, and related occupations than those without a disability (36.5 percent, compared with 42.7 percent). As a result, persons with disabilities earn less than people without a disability.
I expect that the disabled also have improved their earnings but I would be surprised if they benefited as much as people without disabilities between 2020 and today. I have not been able to find data yet but here is some interesting data.
An 80-year-old law makes it legal to pay people with disabilities less than minimum wage. The Fair Labor Standards Act allows states and employers to pay workers with disabilities below the federal minimum wage. That has allowed persons with disabilities to make only $3.34 per hour, with some places paying even less than that. Historically, persons with disability have a median income that is 32% lower than people without. (Census, 2020)
EARNINGS IN PAST 12 MONTHS (IN 2020 INFLATION ADJUSTED DOLLARS) No disability Disability Difference in % $1 to $4,999 or loss 8.5 15.5 7 $5,000 to $14,999 12.9 19.6 6.7 $15,000 to $24,999 12.8 14.7 1.9 $25,000 to $34,999 13.2 12.6 -0.6 $35,000 to $49,999 15.1 12.8 -2.3 $50,000 to $74,999 16.8 12.5 -4.3 $75,000 or more 20.7 12.4 -8.3 Median Earnings $37,128 $25,162 -32%