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State information > District of Columbia Disability Statistics Table From 2002 American Community Survey

District of Columbia Disability Data Table From the 2002 American Community Survey

Estimates for 2002

An estimated 80,000 people in District of Columbia have a disability, or 16.1% of the population age 5 and over. An estimated 12,000 people, or 2.4% 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 District of Columbia
(ages 5 and over)
501 80 16.1% 12 2.4%
Disability Type          
Sensory   17   4 21.4%
Mobility   44   10 23.7%
Cognitive   24   6 25.1%
Self-care   12   12  
Leaving the home   27   9 31.7%
Work disability   38   8 21.6%
Gender          
Male 234 33 14.3% 4 1.8%
Female 268 47 17.6% 8 3.0%
Age          
Children (5-17) 76 6 8.0% 1 0.7%
    5-15 66 5 7.4% 0 0.7%
    16-17 10 1 12.0% 0 0.8%
Working Ages (18-64) 361 43 12.0% 6 1.7%
    18-44 233 18 7.6% 3 1.1%
    45-64 128 25 19.9% 4 2.8%
Elderly (65+) 64 31 48.5% 6 8.6%
    65-74 33 12 36.8% 2 5.5%
    75-84 23 12 53.5% 2 8.1%
    85+ 8 7 82.9% 2 23.0%
Race          
White 157 15 9.6% 3 1.8%
African American 303 62 20.5% 9 3.0%
Asian/Pacific Islander 16 2 11.4% 1 3.8%
American Indian/Alaska Native 6 1 22.3% 0 6.5%
Ethnicity          
Hispanic 47 3 6.6% 0 0.9%
Non-Hispanic 454 77 17.0% 12 2.6%
Family Income          
In poverty 84 20 23.9% 5 5.5%
Above poverty 415 60 14.4% 8 1.8%
Benefit Recipiency          
Social Security (OASDI) 60 30 49.9% 6 9.9%
Supplemental Security Income 11 10 94.1% 2 14.6%
Employment (Ages 18-64)          
Employed 259 19 7.3% 1 0.5%
Unemployed (in labor force) 29 3 10.9% 0 1.1%
Not in labor force 71 21 29.6% 5 6.4%
Living Arrangement          
Lives alone 118 25 21.4% 4 3.4%
Lives with others 384 55 14.4% 8 2.2%

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

About the District of Columbia 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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