| The June 2001 issue of the Monthly
Labor Review contains an article written by Thomas Hale, an economist employed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics
(BLS). The article criticizes the CPS as a data source for studying the
employment experience of persons with a disability as measured by the
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Hale’s goal as an employee of BLS is to find/develop a survey to enable measurement of the
employment experiences of persons with a disability as it is defined by
the ADA. The CPS, however, does not use this definition, nor is this
definition the best one to use when assessing lost earnings.
Other key criticisms in the article deal with the validity
of the first work disability question (limited in the amount
or kind . . .) and the presence of persons with a temporary disability.
Hale's criticisms of the CPS are not new. They
are either irrelevant to the worklife expectancy calculations contained in
The Tables, or are not substantial enough to warrant discontinuing use of
the CPS for estimating the worklife expectancy of persons with and without
work disability. His reservations are contradicted by many leading researchers
who use the CPS data to study the impact of disability.
There is no official government position against use of
the CPS to define work disability. In fact the Census Bureau regularly generates
cross-tabulations of this data and publishes it on its
web site.
In fact, two noted former Census officials (McNeil
and Miller) have
authored affidavits to the validity of CPS for measuring work disability. |
