Institute for Economic Empowerment

The Employee Research System (ERS) will track employment of people with significant disabilities over time. This nationwide database will enable analysis of worker-level outcomes for AbilityOne Workers with disabilities, non-AbilityOne workers with disabilities; and others receiving services. The goals of the ERS are to support research and evaluation, advocacy, policy development, business development and fundraising, benchmarking, continuous improvement and Quality Work Environments (QWE) for people with disabilities.

538 NISH-affiliated nopnprofit agencies (NPAs) employ 41,000 people with disabilities on AbilityOne contracts and overall, employ approximately 120,000 people with disabilities. This makes the AbilityOne Program the largest employer of people with disabilities in the country.  The nonprofit agencies signed up to participate in the ERS represent more than 20% of the NISH-affiliated AbilityOne employees. the list of currently participating nonprofit agencies is updated regularly on this website.

Sign up your agency now to make the data even more complete. Participating NPAs will receive reports such as:

• Employment statistics by Congressional district
• Worker wages and hours worked by industry
• Length of employment by industry
• Demographics of AbilityOne workers
• Benchmarking against other organizations by geographic region or industry

Phase 1 of the system will enable NISH-affiliated NPAs to extract commonly available data from payroll or other automated systems to an Excel spreadsheet, and submit it securely to the ERS on a quarterly basis.  Phase 1 of the ERS will be complete by September 30, 2010.  Data submissions will begin in October, and the initial reports will be available to participating NPAs in January, 2011.

To learn more or to sign up for Phase 1, fill out our form now! 
To read more about ERS, see the menu under About ERS.

In 2009, the Institute published a System Concept for the Employee Research System (ERS).  The National Council of Work Centers (NCWC) has endorsed the project. A number of nonprofit agencies (NPAs) have been participating in an Employment Data Workgroup to define the requirements. 

The concept for Phase 1 is for NPAs to extract commonly available data from payroll or other systems to an Excel spreadsheet, and submit it securely to the ERS.  Key standard reports will cover subjects such as:

• AbilityOne employment statistics by Congressional district
• AbilityOne worker wages and hours worked by industry
  
• Length of employment by industry
  
• Demographics of AbilityOne workers
• Benchmarking against other organizations (aggregate data only), by geographic region or industry
  

Construction of Phase 1 of the ERS will be complete by September 30, 2010. Phase 1 participating NPAs will submit their first quarterly data from October through December, 2010. The submission will cover the quarter ending September 30, 2010. The more NPAs that participate, the better the aggregate data will be. As data is validated, reports will be available to participating organizations.

The Employment Data Workgroup is meeting weekly via teleconference and will meet in person in Arlington, Texas, on April 27 and 28.  See Institute Events for information on the Data Workgroup meetings.

All interested NISH producing NPAs are encouraged to participate in Phase 1. To learn more and possibly participate in Phase 1:

• Contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it by e-mail or phone at (540) 882-3593, or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it at (571) 226-4523.
  
• Attend the session on the ERS at the NISH Annual Employment and Training Conference, and stop by our table at the Big Ideas Exchange.
  
• You can also download the System Concept for the ERS [Adobe Acrobat PDF - 400.05 KB] from this website.

 

{mosimage}The Institute for Economic Empowerment is pleased to announce the award of a contract to the National Organization on Disability (NOD). NOD will be working with the Institute in conducting research and in identifying and/or developing and testing both employment and ongoing employment support strategies that are responsive to the short- and long-term employment needs of severely disabled veterans who have been identified as having a traumatic brain injury (TBI) and/or a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

NOD was chosen through a competitive Request for Proposal (RFP) process that included panel scoring, and follow-up interviews.  This project will involve work with wounded soldiers and veterans, their families, (and where appropriate) their employers.   We feel that NOD's existing relationship with the Army Wounded Warrior (AW2) program will be a significant benefit to this initiative.

As data is received from this project, we will post results on the Institute website.  If you have questions regarding this project, please contact Denise Perka, Institute Research Manager at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

The Montgomery County, MD County Council has created a local government hiring preference for people with developmental, psychiatric, or severe physical disabilities.

The new law gives the same preference  to people with disabilities as has been given to veterans, and creates a new classification that outranks them both for veterans with disabilities.

Research by the County Council staff found that Montana has similar statewide legislation, but did not identify any other local legislation that provides hiring preferences for people with disabilities.

The County government's Office of Legislative Oversight(OLO) released a report, "Hiring Persons with Disabilities:  A Review of County Government Practices" in 2008.

 "Since the 1980's, the County's Commission on People with Disabilities was advocating for greater employment of people with disabilities," said Kermit Mohn, who chaired the commission from 1991-94. "I am happy to see that in my lifetime, this hiring preference is one giant step forward in righting the past, and still current, very high unemployment rate of disabled vets and people with disabilities."

Read more about it at the Montgomery County website, at  http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/Apps/Council/PressRelease/PR_details.asp?PrID=6225  or in the Washington Post article of February 3, 2010 at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/02/AR2010020203572.html.