Disabled workers concerned about US return-to-office plans

STORY: Lucy Trieshmann has a rare genetic disorder that made going to law school in person unbearable without spending part of the time lying on the floor.

But the start of the pandemic in March 2020 led to a major change in Treishmann's life.

"The disabled law student association at the law school had been advocating for remote classroom attendance and captioning and other digital access needs for years at this point." (FLASH) "And then the pandemic happened. And within days the law school was able to turn everything online. Everybody was able to attend class remotely."

Trieshman is now looking for a position as an attorney and is one of the roughly two million Americans with a disability to either land a job or start looking for one since December 2019, according to figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

That is an unprecedented 30% jump in workforce participation by a group where 80% had been on the sidelines.

Disability experts attribute this to the rise of remote work and potentially to the rise in the number of people with so-called Long Covid.

Stacy Cervenka, the senior director of policy at Respectability explains.

"We speculate that another reason that the labor force participation rate of people with disabilities may have increased is that, frankly, because of long COVID, there are more people with disabilities. There are people who, because of COVID, are now experiencing chronic fatigue, chronic pain, you know, cognitive issues such as difficulty focusing, difficulty with short term and working memory."

Netia McCray is one of those who have suffered from Long Covid and now considers herself disabled and is fighting for more opportunities.

"We need to collectively figure out what are accommodations that we can have in place, whether in school workplaces, community centers, in society as a whole in order to accommodate a future. And where American citizens are allowed to have not only those disabilities but also participate and remain in society versus feeling like they're shunned or siloed away from participating."

Trieshman is concerned that as accommodations made during the pandemic fade, so too will opportunities in the workforce.

"I do have concerns that as we start rolling back COVID precautions, as we start thinking that the pandemic is a chapter that has closed, that it's over, that, you know, we can end the austerity measures, we can stop having remote access to work, that that's going to make it really challenging. And disabled folks are going to have to leave the workforce."

Some economists and policy experts share this concern and a recent report from Resume Builder showed 90% of companies plan to roll out return to office policies by the end of this year.