New Census Report Finds 40% of Older Americans Have at Least 1 Disability

According to Older Americans with a Disability: 2008-2012, a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau, 40% of people age 65 and older had at least 1 disability. 

Of those 15.7 million people, 2/3 of them say they had difficulty in walking or climbing.

Lack of mobility (difficulty walking or climbing) was the most commonly cited disability among older adults, followed by:

• Difficulty with independent living, such as visiting a doctor’s office or shopping.
• Serious difficulty in hearing.
• Cognitive difficulty.
• Difficulty bathing or dressing.
• Serious difficulty seeing.

While populous states such as California, Florida, New York, and Texas had the largest number of older people with a disability, high disability rates were seen in Southern counties, especially in central Appalachia and the Mississippi Delta.

The report is based on data collected during the American Community Survey.

According to the press release, the following are a few key findings from the report:

• More than half (54.4%) of the older population who had not graduated from high school had a disability, twice the rate of those with a bachelor’s degree or higher (26.0%). This inverse relationship between educational attainment and likelihood of having a disability was found across age, sex, race and Hispanic origin. 
  
  
• More than 1/3 of those 85 and older with a disability lived alone, compared with 1/4 of those age 65 to 74. 
  
  
• About 13% of the older household population with a disability lived in poverty; in contrast, 7% of those without a disability were in poverty.
  
  
• The older population with a disability was disproportionately concentrated among those 85 and older. This group represented 13.6% of the total older population but accounted for 25.4% of the older population with a disability.
  
  
• Women 65 and older were more likely than men 65 and older to have 5 of the 6 types of disability included in the American Community Survey, especially ambulatory difficulty. Older women’s higher rates for disability are, in part, because women live longer. 
  
  
• Disability rates were lower for married older people than for those widowed or in other categories of marital status

For more information, the full report is available on the U.S. Census Bureau website.