Center for Personal Assistance Services University of California, San Francisco  
Jump over persistant main navigation to the sub navigationHome (press control H in some browsers)Formal and Informal PAS (press control F in some browsers)Home and Community PAS (press control C in some browsers)PAS Workforce (press control W in some browsers)Workplace PAS (press control O in some browsers)PAS Users (press control U in some browsers)  

Introduction

Pennsylvania Home Page/Choose a State.

Pennsylvania Statistics

Pennsylvania Disability Statistics.

Number of Home and Personal Care Workers in Pennsylvania.

State Program Data

Medicaid Waiver Data in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania Medicaid HCBS Data.

Federal HCBS Funding to Pennsylvania.

State Only Funded HCBS in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania Legal Information

Pennsylvania Olmstead Plans and Lawsuits.

Pennsylvania PAS Projects

Research/Demo Projects to Improve PAS Workforce.

Pennsylvania Resources

Contact Info and Descriptions for all Pennsylvania Medicaid Waivers.

Pennsylvania Agencies Related to PAS.

Pennsylvania resources for employment of persons with disabilities.

Pennsylvania Library

PAS Reports and Publications related to Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania PAS Workforce Library.

Pennsylvania Links

PAS Web Links Related to Pennsylvania.

Jump over the changing body navigation to the persistant top navigation

Printer-friendly page

State information > Pennsylvania Disability Statistics Table From 2003 American Community Survey

Pennsylvania Disability Data Table From the 2003 American Community Survey

Estimates for 2003

An estimated 1,786,000 people in Pennsylvania have a disability, or 15.9% of the population age 5 and over. An estimated 302,000 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 Pennsylvania
(ages 5 and over)		 11,229 1,786 15.9% 302 2.7%
Disability Type          
Sensory   481   87 18.1%
Mobility   1,064   275 25.9%
Cognitive   586   145 24.7%
Self-care   302   302  
Leaving the home   493   223 45.3%
Work disability   1,012   253 25.0%
Gender          
Male 5,415 819 15.1% 118 2.2%
Female 5,814 967 16.6% 183 3.2%
Age          
Children (5-17) 2,111 153 7.2% 19 0.9%
    5-15 1,781 130 7.3% 16 0.9%
    16-17 330 23 6.9% 3 0.8%
Working Ages (18-64) 7,353 888 12.1% 135 1.8%
    18-44 4,272 357 8.3% 43 1.0%
    45-64 3,081 532 17.3% 92 3.0%
Elderly (65+) 1,765 745 42.2% 148 8.4%
    65-74 876 263 30.0% 45 5.1%
    75-84 680 330 48.5% 61 9.0%
    85+ 208 152 73.2% 42 20.1%
Race          
White 9,691 1519 15.7% 251 2.6%
African American 1,130 223 19.7% 42 3.8%
Asian/Pacific Islander 252 20 7.9% 4 1.5%
American Indian/Alaska Native 46 16 33.8% 5 10.9%
Ethnicity          
Hispanic 359 55 15.3% 8 2.2%
Non-Hispanic 10,870 1,731 15.9% 294 2.7%
Family Income          
In poverty 1,196 348 29.1% 62 5.2%
Above poverty 9,999 1,432 14.3% 239 2.4%
Benefit Recipiency          
Social Security (OASDI) 2,027 891 44.0% 181 8.9%
Supplemental Security Income 244 231 94.8% 51 21.0%
Employment (Ages 18-64)          
Employed 5,295 317 6.0% 24 0.5%
Unemployed (in labor force) 398 56 14.1% 6 1.4%
Not in labor force 1,654 515 31.1% 106 6.4%
Living Arrangement          
Lives alone 1,426 459 32.2% 78 5.5%
Lives with others 9,803 1,327 13.5% 224 2.3%

Source: Tabulations by the Center for PAS from the 2003 American Community Survey (ACS).

About the Pennsylvania 2003 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 from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS) for 2003, 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.

These statistics from the 2003 ACS are both more current and more valid than estimates obtained from either the 2000 Census or previous years of the ACS. Problems discovered in two of the six disability questions, leading to a substantial overestimate of the disability population in the 2000 Census, have been fixed in the 2003 ACS questionnaire. These problems also affected prior years of the ACS, but to a lesser extent than the 2000 Census, due to different data collection procedures.

Previous years of disability data from the ACS:

 

Top
Select from Map
Button: Map of the 50 US states. Choose another state for page.
OR
Select from List