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State information > Florida Disability Statistics Table From 2002 American Community Survey

Florida Disability Data Table From the 2002 American Community Survey

Estimates for 2002

An estimated 2,720,000 people in Florida have a disability, or 17.8% of the population age 5 and over. An estimated 427,000 people, or 2.8% 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 Florida
(ages 5 and over)
15,306 2,720 17.8% 427 2.8%
Disability Type          
Sensory   680   135 19.9%
Mobility   1,548   378 24.4%
Cognitive   802   243 30.3%
Self-care   427   427  
Leaving the home   870   299 34.4%
Work disability   1,350   308 22.8%
Gender          
Male 7,399 1,312 17.7% 181 2.4%
Female 7,907 1,408 17.8% 246 3.1%
Age          
Children (5-17) 2,852 204 7.2% 23 0.8%
    5-15 2,428 168 6.9% 21 0.9%
    16-17 424 36 8.5% 2 0.5%
Working Ages (18-64) 9,726 1,355 13.9% 193 2.0%
    18-44 5,791 530 9.2% 64 1.1%
    45-64 3,935 825 21.0% 129 3.3%
Elderly (65+) 2,728 1,161 42.6% 211 7.7%
    65-74 1,417 468 33.0% 68 4.8%
    75-84 1,028 488 47.4% 85 8.2%
    85+ 282 206 72.9% 59 20.8%
Race          
White 12,225 2,228 18.2% 346 2.8%
African American 2,321 390 16.8% 66 2.9%
Asian/Pacific Islander 351 38 10.7% 4 1.2%
American Indian/Alaska Native 113 26 23.3% 5 4.6%
Ethnicity          
Hispanic 2,740 381 13.9% 57 2.1%
Non-Hispanic 12,566 2,340 18.6% 370 2.9%
Family Income          
In poverty 1,909 453 23.7% 87 4.5%
Above poverty 13,344 2,261 16.9% 340 2.5%
Benefit Recipiency          
Social Security (OASDI) 2,971 1,293 43.5% 249 8.4%
Supplemental Security Income 244 234 96.1% 56 22.9%
Employment (Ages 18-64)          
Employed 6,891 597 8.7% 32 0.5%
Unemployed (in labor force) 501 78 15.6% 8 1.6%
Not in labor force 2,302 678 29.5% 153 6.7%
Living Arrangement          
Lives alone 1,858 599 32.2% 87 4.7%
Lives with others 13,448 2,122 15.8% 340 2.5%

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

About the Florida 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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