Getting Facts Straight on Wheelchair-Bound
Jane Applegate’s column “Adding Ramps, Wide Doors to Improve Access Also Opens Up Profit Potential” [March 25] makes a common but quite misleading error. Applegate tells businesses that not performing expensive changes to “accommodate those in a wheelchair” is “costing you.”
She then says they are “ignoring about one-fifth of the U.S. population--49 million people.” This implies that that figure of 49 million disabled is commensurate with the number of wheelchair-bound. It is not.
A moment’s thought on her part, or that of her editors, should have found something fishy about the notion that 1 out of 5 Americans is in a wheelchair or needs the same accommodations as someone who is. In fact, fewer than 2% of those 49 million disabled are wheelchair-bound--around 530,000 people.
In attempting to convince businesses that the legal demands of the Americans With Disabilities Act are in fact good for them, one shouldn’t resort to absurdly misleading statistics.
BRIAN DOHERTY
Assistant Editor
Reason magazine
Los Angeles
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