Re: Disability statistics

The US government estimated (I think based on 1999 census information - I
know there is a reference in these archives somewhere <sigh/>) USD $175
billion as the annual disposable income of people with disabilities. In
Australia the term usually means what people have to spend after they have
paid for rent, basic food, work expenses, i.e. people living on basic Social
Security Payments generally have almost none, but people with jobs have more.

There is an argument to be made that not only is this money available, but at
the moment it is a largely unserved market, and therefore ready to get good
service. I believe that ther is research into customer loyalty that shows
customers with disabilities are more loyal than average customers, but I
can't remember where I heard it so it could be unreliable.

cheers

Charles McCN

On Fri, 14 Dec 2001, Access Systems wrote:

  On Sun, 4 Nov 2001, Kynn Bartlett wrote:

  > At 04:34 AM 11/3/2001 , Joe Clark wrote:
  > >I was reading the remarks about making a business case for accessibility, which I believe flatly cannot be done. It's purely an issue of ethics or legal compliance.

  late reply but.

  I think there is a business case possible.  in fact I found that in the
  Baltimore Metro Area using only minimum SS payments as the per person
  income, which is low balling because some will be making more $$$

  and using that number and census data it was figured that there would be
  over 7million dollars per month of disposable income by these persons.

  How much do you (the business) want of that??

  Bob

  >
  > I think you're right; business cases tend to be very weak and actually
  > avoid the issues of people with disabilities ("cell phones!" "search
  > engines!") because when you're a minority group, especially one with
  > limited means AND obstacles to use, statistics are generally speaking
  > not your friend.
  >
  > I've heard statistics used as "oh, huh! I never knew that" supporting
  > evidence, but I've never seen a web developer or policymaker make a
  > change just because the numbers are there.  At best, disability
  > stats are numeric trivia.
  >
  > Frankly, I think the argument, "we may end up disabled ourselves and
  > be unable to use the Internet we're building" has proven more
  > compelling than any sort numbers we can report.
  >
  > --Kynn
  >
  >
  > --
  > Kynn Bartlett <kynn@reef.com>
  > Technical Developer Liaison
  > Reef North America
  > Accessibility - W3C - Integrator Network
  > ________________________________________
  > BUSINESS IS DYNAMIC. TAKE CONTROL.
  > ________________________________________
  > http://www.reef.com
  >

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-- 
Charles McCathieNevile    http://www.w3.org/People/Charles  phone: +61 409 134 136
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative     http://www.w3.org/WAI    fax: +1 617 258 5999
Location: 21 Mitchell street FOOTSCRAY Vic 3011, Australia
(or W3C INRIA, Route des Lucioles, BP 93, 06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France)

Received on Friday, 14 December 2001 23:29:10 UTC