Purpose The COVID pandemic was a severe blow to all workers, but it may ultimately have a silver lining for some workers with disabilities if it makes work from home easier and more acceptable. In addition, the pandemic is shaking up traditional workplace structures and causing employers to rethink how essential tasks can be done, which may broaden their views of workplace accommodations. We assess the potential for the pandemic to improve employment opportunities for people with disabilities. Methods This article analyzes pre-COVID data on disability and home-based work from three representative data sources—the American Community Survey, American Time Use Survey, and Current Population Survey. We employ both cross-tabulations and regressions to predict work at home. Results We find that workers with disabilities are more likely than those without disabilities both to work primarily from home and to do any work at home. This is true for both employees and self-employed workers. Workers with disabilities face similar wage gaps in on-site and home-based work, indicating that while increased availability of home-based work may create more employment opportunities for workers with disabilities, it is unlikely to erase wage disparities. While workers with disabilities are currently more likely to be working primarily from home, only 34% are in occupations with high potential for home-based work, compared to 40% of workers without disabilities. Conclusions Workers with disabilities are currently more likely to work from home and many may benefit from expanded work-at-home opportunities, but the types of jobs they hold constrain this potential. Research is needed to see how home-based work evolves as the economy recovers from the pandemic over the next several years.

目的COVID 大流行对所有工人都是沉重的打击，但如果它使在家工作更容易和更容易接受，它最终可能会给一些残疾工人带来一线希望。此外，大流行正在动摇传统的工作场所结构，并导致雇主重新考虑如何完成基本任务，这可能会拓宽他们对工作场所住宿的看法。我们评估了大流行病改善残疾人就业机会的潜力。方法本文分析了来自三个具有代表性的数据源——美国社区调查、美国时间使用调查和当前人口调查——的关于残疾和家庭工作的 COVID 前数据。我们同时使用交叉表和回归来预测在家工作。结果我们发现残疾工人比非残疾工人更有可能主要在家工作和在家工作。这对雇员和个体经营者都是如此。残疾工人在现场工作和在家工作中面临类似的工资差距，这表明虽然增加家庭工作的可用性可能会为残疾工人创造更多就业机会，但不太可能消除工资差距。虽然残疾工人目前更有可能主要在家工作，但只有 34% 的人从事具有高潜力在家工作的职业，而非残疾工人的这一比例为 40%。结论残疾工人目前更有可能在家工作，许多人可能会从扩大的在家工作机会中受益，但他们所从事的工作类型限制了这种潜力。需要进行研究，以了解随着未来几年经济从大流行中复苏，居家工作将如何发展。