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State information > New Jersey Disability Statistics Table From 2002 American Community Survey

New Jersey Disability Data Table From the 2002 American Community Survey

Estimates for 2002

An estimated 1,139,000 people in New Jersey have a disability, or 14.5% of the population age 5 and over. An estimated 179,000 people, or 2.3% of the population 5 and over, have difficulty performing self-care activities, also known as Activities of Daily Living, such as dressing, bathing, or getting around inside the home. Read more about these data.

Subject Population (Thousands) With a disability (Thousands) With a disability (Percent) With a self-care difficulty (Thousands) With a self-care difficulty (Percent)
Total in New Jersey
(ages 5 and over)
7,834 1,139 14.5% 179 2.3%
Disability Type          
Sensory   276   54 19.7%
Mobility   600   155 25.7%
Cognitive   330   89 26.9%
Self-care   179   179  
Leaving the home   396   133 33.7%
Work disability   577   132 22.9%
Gender          
Male 3,782 523 13.8% 77 2.0%
Female 4,053 616 15.2% 103 2.5%
Age          
Children (5-17) 1,559 98 6.3% 9 0.6%
    5-15 1,338 84 6.3% 9 0.7%
    16-17 221 14 6.4% 0 0.1%
Working Ages (18-64) 5,218 595 11.4% 78 1.5%
    18-44 3,163 258 8.2% 23 0.7%
    45-64 2,054 337 16.4% 55 2.7%
Elderly (65+) 1,058 446 42.2% 92 8.7%
    65-74 553 180 32.6% 25 4.5%
    75-84 397 190 47.8% 41 10.4%
    85+ 108 76 70.8% 26 23.9%
Race          
White 5,795 856 14.8% 141 2.4%
African American 1,067 170 15.9% 26 2.4%
Asian/Pacific Islander 528 58 10.9% 7 1.3%
American Indian/Alaska Native 37 9 23.7% 2 4.2%
Ethnicity          
Hispanic 1,088 144 13.3% 21 2.0%
Non-Hispanic 6,747 995 14.7% 158 2.3%
Family Income          
In poverty 564 131 23.3% 28 4.9%
Above poverty 7,248 1,004 13.9% 152 2.1%
Benefit Recipiency          
Social Security (OASDI) 1,141 490 43.0% 105 9.2%
Supplemental Security Income 97 90 93.1% 24 24.5%
Employment (Ages 18-64)          
Employed 3,828 293 7.7% 16 0.4%
Unemployed (in labor force) 303 37 12.2% 3 1.1%
Not in labor force 1,082 265 24.5% 59 5.4%
Living Arrangement          
Lives alone 768 221 28.8% 45 5.8%
Lives with others 7,067 918 13.0% 135 1.9%

Source: Tabulations by the Center for PAS from the 2002 American Community Survey (ACS).

About the New Jersey 2002 ACS Disability Data

The Center for Personal Assistance Services has compiled state and national data on the prevalence of overall disability and of self-care difficulty, by gender, age, race and ethnicity, type of disability, family income, benefit recipiency, employment status, and living arrangement. These statistics are based on our tabulations of public use data sets from the 2002 American Community Survey (ACS), containing information on over 1 million residents of randomly selected U.S. households. Because it is a household survey, people living in institutions such as nursing homes are not included.

The 2002 ACS offers two significant advantages over disability estimates obtained from the 2000 Census. An obvious advantage is that the data are more recent. More importantly, major problems have been discovered in the responses to two of the six disability questions from the 2000 Census long form, due largely to the procedures for collecting data on households that failed to respond to the paper questionnaire. Although the ACS questionnaire features the same six disability items, the survey's procedures for handling survey non-response are different and do not appear to be affected by the same problems. We therefore believe that the ACS estimates of disability rates, though considerably lower than those from the 2000 Census, are far more reliable and should be strongly preferred over those obtained from the 2000 Census, especially for working-age adults.

View more current and valid disability statistics from the ACS:

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