Employment Statistics for People who are Blind or Visually Impaired
For an in-depth discussion of employment and demographics, please review this 2017 edition of the Research Navigator which discusses employment data. Also read Disability Employment Research: Key Takeaways.
The Current Population Survey (CPS)
The CPS is a monthly survey of a representative sample of the civilian, noninstitutionalized population ages 16 and up, not including U.S. Territories.
To understand employment statistics, you need to know the meaning of some important terms. Refer to the Employment Terms section of our Key Definitions of Statistical Terms page for definitions of terms used in the statistics below.
Tables:
- Annual Labor Force Participation Rate
- Annual Employment Population Ratio by Sex: Ages 16-64
- Annual Employment Population Ratio by Sex: Ages 16 and Up
In the following tables, numbers not in parentheses are estimates for people with visual impairment. Numbers in parentheses are estimates for people without visual impairments.
Data Source: Sarah Flood, Miriam King, Renae Rodgers, Steven Ruggles, J. Robert Warren, Daniel Backman, Etienne Breton, Grace Cooper, Julia A. Rivera Drew, Stephanie Richards, David Van Riper, and Kari C.W. Williams. IPUMS CPS: Version 13.0 [dataset]. Minneapolis, MN: IPUMS, 2025. https://doi.org/10.18128/D030.V13.0
The labor force participation rate, as defined by the BLS, is "the percentage of the population that is either employed or unemployed (that is, either working or actively seeking work)" (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014).
Annual Labor Force Participation Rate (based on March CPS)1
| 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ages 16-64 | 47% (75%) | 44% (75%) | 45% (75%) | 44% (74%) | 38% (73%) | 40% (74%) | 41% (74%) | 43% (74%) | 39% (74%) | 34% (73%) |
| Ages 16+ | 27% (63%) | 26% (63%) | 25% (62%) | 26% (63%) | 21% (62%) | 23% (63%) | 24% (64%) | 25% (64%) | 23% (64%) | 19% (64%) |
The employment-population ratio (commonly confused with the employment rate) is the percentage of the total population that is employed, where the total population includes people working, people actively seeking work, and people who have dropped out of the labor force or never entered it (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2016).
Annual Employment Population Ratio by Sex (based on March CPS): Ages 16-641
| 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Females ages 16-64 | 42% (66%) | 42% (68%) | 42% (68%) | 42% (67%) | 32% (65%) | 35% (66%) | 34% (67%) | 37% (66%) | 31% (66%) | 28% (65%) |
| Males ages 16-64 | 38% (75%) | 38% (76%) | 40% (76%) | 37% (76%) | 38% (73%) | 39% (75%) | 40% (76%) | 39% (76%) | 37% (75%) | 30% (74%) |
Annual Employment Population Ratio by Sex (based on March CPS): Ages 16 and up1
| 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Females ages 16 and up | 23% (54%) | 22% (56%) | 23% (56%) | 23% (56%) | 17% (54%) | 18% (55%) | 19% (56%) | 20% (56%) | 17% (56%) | 15% (55%) |
| Males ages 16 and up | 23% (63%) | 25% (66%) | 24% (66%) | 24% (66%) | 23% (63%) | 24% (65%) | 25% (66%) | 26% (66%) | 23% (66%) | 19% (66%) |
Unemployment Rates
The unemployment rate, as calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), is the percentage of the total labor force that is unemployed but actively seeking employment and willing to work. Since the unemployment rate is calculated as a fraction of the labor force, it does not count individuals who are considered "not in the labor force" - those who are not looking for work, whether they never sought employment, they left the workforce for retirement, or they dropped out of the workforce because of disability or long-term unemployment (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017).
In 2025, 10% of people age 16-64 with vision difficulty were unemployed, compared with 4% of people ages 16-64 without vision difficulty.
- Data source: The data on this page come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Current Population Survey (CPS), CPS Basic Monthly data, which can be accessed using the Census Bureau’s microdata exploration tools. The CPS asks the same question about visual impairment which is asked in the Census Bureau's American Community Survey: is the person blind or does he/she "have serious difficulty seeing, even when wearing glasses?"