Who Gets to Work? Employment and Disability in American History

Employment has always been tied to how society defines value, productivity, and worth, and people with disabilities have often been left out of that definition. In this six-part blog series, we explore the history of disability and employment in the United States, from the earliest labor systems to the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act and beyond. Each post examines how attitudes toward work, ability, and merit shaped who was included and who was excluded, and why those patterns persist today. This series connects directly to the themes in The Talent You’re Missing, which examines how merit-based hiring can help employers move beyond outdated assumptions and recognize the talent that has always been there.

Where We Are in the Series

This first post sets the stage by examining how disability and employment became connected in U.S. history and why that history still matters for hiring today.

Employment, Disability, and How Society Defines Value

From the beginning of the United States, work has been more than a way to earn a living. It has been a measure of independence, citizenship, and social worth. People who could work were seen as productive and deserving; people who could not were often labeled as dependent, burdensome, or unfit.

Disability has always complicated that framework. Rather than asking whether jobs could be adapted or barriers removed, society often focused on whether a person’s body or mind fit existing expectations of work. Those expectations were narrow, rigid, and rooted in assumptions about productivity that still influence employment decisions today.

How Disability Became Tied to Employment and Productivity

Disability was not originally defined by diagnosis or law. Instead, it was defined by labor. A person was considered “disabled” when they could not perform the work society expected of them or when their work no longer fit economic needs.

This way of thinking shaped early responses to disability:

• People who could not work were pushed into family dependency or public charity.
• Assistance was often tied to moral judgments about effort and worth.
• Employment was rarely redesigned to include people with different abilities.

These early patterns created a lasting link between disability and exclusion from work, long before formal employment laws existed.

Why Disability and Employment History Still Matter Today

Modern hiring practices did not develop in a vacuum. Many assumptions about productivity, efficiency, and “fit” are rooted in these early ideas about who belongs in the workforce. Even today, people with disabilities are often screened out not because they lack skills, but because workplaces and hiring systems were never designed with them in mind.

Understanding this history helps explain why disability talent continues to be overlooked and why simply encouraging inclusion without changing systems is not enough.

Looking Ahead

In the next post, we’ll go back to the beginning, examining how labor systems from the 1600s through the Civil War shaped ideas about ability, productivity, and who was considered “fit” to work in America.

Want to Learn More About Disability and Employment?

The Talent You’re Missing explores these themes in greater detail and demonstrates how merit-based hiring helps employers move beyond outdated assumptions and recognize talent with disabilities. At Disability Insights, we help organizations apply these ideas in practical, real-world workplace settings.