First read this article about the Census Bureau proposal to change both the way data about disability is collected on the American Community Survey and accompanying recommendations about how to use the data.
If you read the article before December 19 and you have strong opinions, please use the link to comment.
National Partnership on Women...article on Census Bureau Proposal
RantWoman's STRONG opinions:
--Imposing data discontinuities and interpretations meant to minimize who gets counted as disabled is NOT the way to either optimize use of resources OR to reduce fiscal considerations about disability claims. Social Security and Medicare can both be made solvent and sustainable by modest adjustments: index the cap on income subject to tax with inflation. Make more income such as capital gains subject to these two taxes. RantWoman knows perfectly well these suggestions terrify many people. Oh well.
--Some valued members of our families and our communities truly cannot work. But there are millions more who are willing and able to work if barriers due to discrimination and accessibility challenges can be solved. These barriers cannot be solved if people pretend differences don't exist and then don't collect data to inform decisions about how best to work with these realities.
--Adopting both the proposed change in data collection and the interpretation recommended by the Census Bureau will worsen the undercounting of many categories of disabilities. The proposed interpretation will also subject millions of people to the "bureaucratic miracle cure," worsening of funding and resources available to deal with disabilities in general and to deal with the specific and highly variable needs of people who have widely varying levels of functionality related to specific disabilities, age of onset, educational opportunity, and living situation.
--Imperfect as the current 6 questions on the American Community Survey are, RantWoman wishes they were more widely used on many surveys just as a small step toward comparability between different data sets. RantWoman would recommend keeping the six questions just to assist with comparability over time.
--At the same time, RantWoman thinks it would be FINE to add say 10 questions about functionality with say a 1-5 scale from low impact to severe. Use these questions as many places as possible and encourage people doing other data collection to use the same questions. RantWoman knows there is a cost to collecting more data. RantWoman believes it is worthwhile.
--RantWoman strongly urges the Census Bureau to promote better collection of data and NOT make any recommend any specific interpretation. Instead let people designing programs decide how to use the data that is collected.
--Collecting MORE data is never bad. We live in an age of cheap data storage and temptation to run generative AI in all kinds of ways that put RantWoman in mind of "Garbage in Garbage out." If AI is going to be everywhere at least collect data better to feed into the models.
The Bureaucratic Miracle Cure is already more than enough of a thing:
--Social Security somehow loses record that someone has been legally blind for decades.
--A paratransit agency gets a new CEO. New CEO makes a couple who have both been blind since birth go to a doctor and bring back a paper reassuring the newcomer that, unsurprisingly, the couple are still blind.
RantWoman is pretty sure she would have no trouble collecting many such Bureaucratic Miracle Cure stories, but it's the holidays and RantWoman is trying VERY hard to stay somewhere within the same galaxy of holiday spirit. RantWoman strongly urges the Census Bureau to do better than just Bureaucratic Miracle Cure.
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