An examination of nearly 100 large U.S. cities shows that cities with a large number of people with disabilities in their populations have a harder time getting them into the workforce. IPIC performed this analysis, using census data, to test the theory that job placement of people with disabilities was affected by city size. We found evidence to defend that theory. But we also found that some cities, including Indianapolis, perform better than expected. Compared to other cities, Indianapolis has a lot of people with disabilities, but does a better job of getting them jobs.

The horizontal axis on the chart shows the percentage of each city’s adults who have a disability. Cities further to the right have more, and Indianapolis is one of those. The vertical axis, meanwhile, show the percentage of people with disabilities who are employed. A higher point means a large share of people with disabilities who are working. The black line signals the downward trend that most cities fall into: the higher the share of disabled adults, the lower the rate of employment for disabled people in that city.

The pattern is statistically significant (r2=.48), but some cities exceed the mark and others fall below it. In Indianapolis, 15.6 percent of adults have a disability, and 40.2 percent of these individuals are employed. The pattern of other cities suggests that a city with that many adults with disabilities may find work for only about 33.5 percent. Indianapolis’ performance in this respect is 20 percent better than expected. Some factor or combination of factors in Indianapolis has helped something like 5,734 more people with disabilities get jobs.