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One of the primary goals of the American disability rights movement has been to temper the economic oppression of persons with disabilities by decreasing our unemployment rate -- stuck between 65 and 70 percent of working-age people with disabilities for the last 30 years. Since the 1970s, civil rights laws and other liberal policy reforms have been enacted to advance the opportunity to earn a living on par with our nondisabled peers.

There is little evidence that these measures have done much to improve the material conditions under which most disabled people live. A 1997 comparative study showed that state and federal anti-discrimination laws have not produced the gains in employment levels or wage rates for people with disabilities that advocates expected.

Despite a hot economy and an official unemployment rate of 3.9 percent, the lowest in 30 years, the unemployment rate for the working-age disability community has remained chronically high. One-third of adults with disabilities live in a household with an annual income of less than $15,000, compared to one-eighth of those without disabilities -- a 22-point gap. And the gap between persons with disabilities and nondisabled persons living with very low incomes has remained virtually constant since 1986 (four years prior to passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act).

For those who do have jobs, incomes remain lower then nondisabled workers'. Census data show that those with disabilities are more likely to work part time and that part-time workers with disabilities earned on average only 72.4 percent of the amount nondisabled workers earned annually in 1995. Wage gaps for those working full time are similar. The median monthly income for people with disabilities averaged $1,511 to $1,880 -- as much as 20 percent less than the $1,737 to $2,356 earned by their counterparts without disabilities.

The inequality represented in these figures is disturbing. To grasp it requires measuring inequality on two levels: the income and employment gaps between the population with disabilities and the nondisabled population and the wealth gap between the rich and the rest of us.

Gap Between Rich and Poor Growing

According to reports released in the past few months, the Wall Street boom is widening the income gap between the poorest and richest American families. As the nation perches at what some call peak economic performance, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) find that millions of working poor fall farther behind.

Wages for the bottom 80 percent of workers have stagnated or lost ground over the last 20 years, and employment has become less secure for the average worker. Meanwhile, the average yearly pay of chief executive officers at major corporations jumped 18 percent in 1999 to $12 million.

In the midst of an affordable-housing crisis, the share of wealth in the hands of the top 5 percent has reached levels not seen since the Great Depression. The richest 1 percent has a larger share of wealth than the bottom 90 percent of the population. EPI reports that by 1997, the average net worth of the top 1 percent was about $10 million, up 11.3 percent from 1989. Over the same period, the net worth of middle-class families fell 2.9 percent.

Conservative think tanks and highly paid lobbyists on "Gucci Gulch" (K Street in Washington, D.C.) relentlessly press Congress to roll back entitlement spending, adopt policies that benefit corporations and create more tax cuts for the rich.

Increased Federal Interest in Hiring People with Disabilities

Actually, the plight of those with disabilities has been getting more attention lately than usual. Recently President Clinton used his bully pulpit to place employment of people with disabilities on the national radar screen, ordering federal agencies and departments to hire workers with disabilities. He signed a work subsidy, the Work Incentive Improvements Act, which allows workers with disabilities to buy into public health care, a measure which could help offset their disadvantage in the labor market.

After some 20 years of activists' efforts to get government to reform systems that restrict the freedom to work of people with disabilities, we might well ask why the government chose 1999 to do so. The recent emphasis suggests there is more to these actions than advancement of the civil rights of those with disabilities. After all, federal employers have had a concrete affirmative-action requirement (Section 501 of the Rehabilitation Act ) to hire people with disabilities since 1973, but the government has not complied for over 25 years.

There is, in fact, another dimension to the president's call: The Clinton administration is following a macroeconomics agenda. Labor Secretary Alexis Herman told a joint meeting of national disability organizations, "The last big group of people in this country who could keep the economy going strong with low inflation are Americans with disabilities ... who are not in the workforce."

On his poverty tour, President Clinton clarified how the new workforce fits into macroeconomic planning. In discussing how to keep America's economy growing without spurring inflation, he said, "There are a couple of options. You can bring more people from welfare or from the ranks of the disabled into the workforce."

Clinton's comment came upon the heels of discussion in economic circles as to whether the Federal Reserve System would raise interest rates or not. Economists wondered how much growth, high employment and rising labor costs the economy could withstand before the combination set off inflation.

Although the Humphrey Hawkins Act directs the Federal Reserve to adhere to goals of full employment, the Fed's monetary policy is based on the theory that a certain level of unemployment is healthy for the economy, and it caters to investors' interests by manipulating interest rates to quash growth. This, economists rationalize, cools down hiring, controls inflation (represses wage increases) and most importantly, protects profits and investments on Wall Street.

It's the Economy, Not Civil Rights

As would most any president at this moment in history, Clinton positions the employment of those with disabilities and those on welfare as an inflation-fighting tool. Why? Those representing the capitalist class have an incentive at this stage in the economic cycle to utilize the underemployed disability community to meet Wall Street ends.

The unemployment predicament of those with disabilities may improve, not because of civil rights laws, but because macroeconomic managers demand more workers to ease the labor shortage. The National Urban League, for instance, finds African American employment has been raised to "unprecedented levels" in the current labor market.

But just as the demand for workers can grow, it can also collapse at the end of expansion. During World War II, for instance, there were no disability rights laws, yet workers with disabilities were employed in significant numbers. When the need to deplete the workforce was over, however, their unemployment levels soon drifted higher. It remains to be seen if the ADA can prevent the firing of workers with disabilities at the end of this business cycle.

The disability community seeks a share in the wealth of the nation at a time when unemployment levels are below what the investor class traditionally will tolerate. The disability community's expectations are likely to exceed actual employment gains, due to the limits economic policy makers place on growth. Unless the government addresses the macroeconomic matter of full employment, the president's directive will fail to provide all persons with disabilities a living-wage job.

The Right to Jobs in Any Market

It seems important for activists to insist that future disability policy focus on equality of results, not merely accept the equality of opportunity rhetoric that has not worked. That means economic rights in the tradition of FDR -- the right to a job at any point of the economic cycle.

Disability policy could include:

• A demand that the rich and corporations pay their share of taxes.
• An expansion of the earned income tax credit for those with jobs
• In the absence of a job, a guaranteed, sufficient income

It is time for the spiraling growth of inequality to become a defining issue in U.S. politics.