| Much of Hamel’s criticism centers on the monthly
survey, though The New Worklife Expectancy Tables use
the March supplement to the CPS, not the standard monthly survey.
This Supplement is the source of the data published by the Census
Bureau in its 1983
and 1989 publications,
Labor Force Status and Other
Characteristics of Persons With a Work Disability.
Therefore, by virtue of these publications and the fact that the
Census Bureau continues to calculate and disseminate
work
disability data, the government has acknowledged the validity
of CPS data for measuring the earnings and employment
experiences of persons with a work disability.
These data are also validated by virtue of their repeated use by other
nonforensic researchers. When discussing the March supplement, Hamel notes
that the data “. . . would not provide overall estimates of the disabled
population or workforce.” Note
that this caveat for use of the data is that the CPS should not be used to
measure the size (prevalence) of the disabled population.
Hamel notes that this arises from the fact that the CPS does
not attempt to measure persons with a non-work disability.
The criticism is not relevant to The Tables, since Hamel’s
preferred definition includes people with a disability who are not
limited in the amount or kind of work they can perform.
This definition is much broader than the
work
disability definition relevant to forensic cases, the definition used
by the CPS and in The Tables.
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. |
