Disability news and resources in North America
Library > Countries > North America
This page lists the countries in North America with resources and recent highlights.
Countries
- Barbados
- Canada
- Caribbean
- Costa Rica
- Cuba
- Dominica
- Dominican Republic
- El Salvador
- Guatemala
- Haiti
- Honduras
- Jamaica
- Mexico
- Nicaragua
- Panama
- Trinidad and Tobago
- United States
Recent Highlights
In Canada:
Why are 15 times more Canadians than Californians choosing assisted death?
“In 2022, MAID accounted for 4.1 per cent of all deaths in Canada, compared to 0.27 per cent of all deaths in California. In the Netherlands and Belgium, which legalized assisted dying 22 years ago, 5.1 per cent of Dutch citizens and 2.5 per cent of Belgians die by MAID.” (Apr, National Post)
What is the pay gap between persons with and without disabilities?
“The 2019 CIS revealed that persons with disabilities aged 16 years and older had an average annual income of about $11,500 less than persons without disabilities ($43,400 and $55,200, respectively). This results in a 21.4% pay gap between persons with and without disabilities, or persons with disabilities earned 79 cents to every dollar earned by persons without disabilities.” (2023, Statistics Canada)
Ministers take steps towards ensuring disability-inclusive air travel. (2023, Disability Insider)
In Mexico:
Women with disabilities: the other face of migration. (2023, Yo También)
In the United States:
Equity for Whom? An Introduction to Private Equity’s Impacts on the Disability Community:
“Private equity poses a serious and urgent threat to people with disabilities, particularly those with multiple marginalized identities. People who rely on HCBS, autism services, accessible transportation, fertility assistance, affordable housing, or power wheelchair/scooter repairs, and people who are incarcerated in prison, jail, or living in institutions such as a nursing home, residential treatment facility, or intermediate care facility, have likely been deeply impacted by private equity over the past decade. For this reason, it’s imperative that the disability community oppose this profiteering and exploitation, and resist private equity’s encroachment.” (Oct, DREDF)
American Airlines to pay record $50 million fine over its treatment of disabled passengers. As well as allegedly mishandling or damaging 1000s of wheelchairs between 2019 and 2023:
“In an investigation into the carrier, the Transportation Department said it uncovered numerous infractions, including cases of American providing "unsafe physical assistance" to passengers. The alleged treatment "at times resulted in injuries and undignified treatment of wheelchair users," the agency said in an announcement Wednesday.” (Oct, CBS News)
“How the candidates, voters and media react to age and perceived ability will play a key role in determining the years ahead. Ageism and ableism are key actors in a drama played out on the highest stage, for the highest stakes.” (Jul, Disability Debrief)
The Hardest Thing to Carry: On Disability and Grief “It’s a terrible and beautiful contradiction that the disabilities that bonded us in life, that put us on the path to even meet, are the same ones that snatched my friends from me too soon.” (May, The Squeaky Wheelchair)
Make Neurodiversity Boring an essay reflecting on the neurodiversity movement:
“Despite neurodiversity’s cultural currency, we have won surprisingly few shifts in autism service-provision and research, the primary areas the movement emerged to target. This reflects our community’s reluctance to translate critique into actionable strategies for change. Such efforts are slow, painstaking, and frankly boring next to the social media campaigns and the rarefied academic critiques that have captured the attention of many.” (May, Boston Review)
Assume that I can brilliant, bold video rejecting the self-fulfilling prophecy of negative assumptions about people with Down Syndrome. (Mar, CoorDown)
America Promises Equality for Disabled Students. It’s Failing. A project exploring “how our country’s education system underserves them—and the fight to change that.”:
‘It has been nearly 50 years since the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) passed, guaranteeing a “free appropriate public education” to disabled students. But our system is not living up to this promise. More than one-third of these students don’t graduate high school. The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has more than 2,500 open investigations into complaints from parents of children with disabilities; some have been unresolved for over a decade.’ (2023, Mother Jones)
Disability Inclusion Imperative a report showing how:
“the business case for hiring persons with disabilities has become even stronger. Specifically, companies that have led on key disability inclusion criteria over that time saw 1.6 times more revenue, 2.6 times more net income and 2 times more economic profit than other companies in the Disability Equality Index.” (2023, Accenture and Disability:IN)
Taking on the Unfriendly Skies: Are Airlines Hearing Wheelchair Users’ Protests?
“As a high-level quad who flies on a regular basis, it’s disheartening to be asked for more patience when our rights continue to be violated and our lives are at stake. And though little seems to have changed for current flyers, what has changed is the groundswell of voices pushing to bring down one of the last major walls of exclusion from equal access to modern mass transportation since the ADA was passed 33 years ago.” (2023, New Mobility)
Amazon Got a Perfect Score on Disability Inclusion—From a Group It Helps Fund – Mother Jones —From a Group It Helps Fund:
“Disability:IN released its annual “Best Places to Work” Disability Equality Index, which grades how well companies prioritize and accommodate disabled employees. One company that earned a perfect score: Amazon, which has been accused of disability discrimination by state agencies and current and former staff.” (2023, Mother Jones)
Jordyn Zimmerman is redefining communication as a nonspeaking advocate for disability rights, describing “augmentative and alternative communication”:
‘It’s essentially all the ways someone may communicate besides speaking. It refers to any tool or method or support to help someone be heard or understood. The “augmentative” is usually meant to add to someone’s speech, and the “alternative” is usually meant to be instead of someone’s speech. For me, iPad paired with a text-based application serves as the tool that allows me to reliably and effectively be heard and understood.’ (2023, the 19th)