Disability prevalence in U.S. working age population

Here we’re looking at U.S. Census Bureau data¹ from 2023.

Overall, 13.7 percent of the “civilian noninstitutionalized population” in the United States (plus Puerto Rico) is considered disabled. As you might expect, it skews to the old.

Age group	Percent disabled
Under 5 years	0.7%
5 to 17 years	6.6%
18 to 34 years	8.6%
35 to 64 years	12.7%
65 to 74 years	24.1%
75 years and over	45.6%

How about those of working age? For simplicity, we’ll define this as ages from 18 to 64. In this demographic, there is a nationwide disability rate of 11.2 percent.

A straightforward guess as why some states have a greater share of disabilities in their working-age population is that their economies feature more manual labor jobs and fewer cozy office jobs than others, although there are likely numerous factors.

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1. U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Commerce. “Disability Characteristics.” American Community Survey, ACS 1-Year Estimates Subject Tables, Table S1810, 2023. Accessed on May 1, 2025. ↩