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

New York Disability Data Table From the 2002 American Community Survey

Estimates for 2002

An estimated 2,648,000 people in New York have a disability, or 15.3% of the population age 5 and over. An estimated 468,000 people, or 2.7% 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 York
(ages 5 and over)
17,319 2,648 15.3% 468 2.7%
Disability Type          
Sensory   614   146 23.8%
Mobility   1,507   415 27.5%
Cognitive   799   238 29.8%
Self-care   468   468  
Leaving the home   916   336 36.7%
Work disability   1,357   330 24.3%
Gender          
Male 8,279 1,216 14.7% 198 2.4%
Female 9,040 1,433 15.8% 270 3.0%
Age          
Children (5-17) 3,337 215 6.5% 35 1.1%
    5-15 2,856 178 6.2% 31 1.1%
    16-17 481 38 7.9% 4 0.9%
Working Ages (18-64) 11,654 1,423 12.2% 207 1.8%
    18-44 7,224 612 8.5% 79 1.1%
    45-64 4,430 811 18.3% 128 2.9%
Elderly (65+) 2,328 1,010 43.4% 226 9.7%
    65-74 1,227 408 33.2% 59 4.8%
    75-84 852 415 48.7% 99 11.6%
    85+ 248 187 75.1% 68 27.5%
Race          
White 12,282 1,931 15.7% 345 2.8%
African American 2,868 444 15.5% 85 3.0%
Asian/Pacific Islander 1,164 111 9.5% 16 1.3%
American Indian/Alaska Native 135 34 25.5% 4 2.8%
Ethnicity          
Hispanic 2,726 425 15.6% 77 2.8%
Non-Hispanic 14,593 2,224 15.2% 391 2.7%
Family Income          
In poverty 2,175 533 24.5% 102 4.7%
Above poverty 15,095 2,107 14.0% 365 2.4%
Benefit Recipiency          
Social Security (OASDI) 2,544 1,128 44.3% 255 10.0%
Supplemental Security Income 365 335 91.8% 79 21.5%
Employment (Ages 18-64)          
Employed 8,204 621 7.6% 53 0.6%
Unemployed (in labor force) 676 87 12.8% 6 0.9%
Not in labor force 2,764 715 25.9% 147 5.3%
Living Arrangement          
Lives alone 2,192 658 30.0% 115 5.2%
Lives with others 15,127 1,991 13.2% 353 2.3%

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

About the New York 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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