Are 85% of Autistic Adults Really Unemployed?
What I found after digging through 30+ articles, broken links, and misleading citations.
This week, we have another lesson in investigating media claims and the rabbit holes you sometimes need to go down to get to the bottom of them!
Following RFK Jr.’s awful speech on autism:
“And these are kids who will never pay taxes, they'll never hold a job, they'll never play baseball, they'll never write a poem. They'll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted”
I saw someone claim that 85% of autistic adults are unemployed.
Wow, that sounded like a huge number - could it possibly be true?
A quick Google search showed this statistic popping up everywhere as the standard unemployment rate for autistic adults. But where did it come from?
Article I: Addressing the Autism Unemployment Rate
This started with:
“The unemployment rate among individuals with autism is alarmingly high. Recent studies suggest that up to 85% of adults with autism are unemployed”
But… it gives no source for that figure.
It did cite an academic paper with a very different statistic:
“Another study involving 254 adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) indicated that 61.42% were employed, while 38.58% were unemployed”
And another academic paper:
“In Germany, individuals with ASD face a staggering unemployment rate of 25.2%”
So that's three very different numbers. And no evidence for the 85% claim they used to open the article.
Article 2: Breaking Barriers: Revealing the Truth about Autism Employment Statistics
This one begins with:
“According to ABTABA, the unemployment rate among individuals with autism is estimated to be 80% or higher in many countries. Another estimate suggests that approximately 85% of individuals with autism are unemployed.”
The ABTABA link takes you to a blog that mentions the 80% figure, but the only source they provide is the 38.58% paper from earlier.
Further down, they link to Autism and Employment Statistics – Update 2024, which contains the following graphic - this must be the source, right??
Graphic from https://mydisabilityjobs.com/statistics/autism-employment/
But, no - not even close! Their sources include:
The earlier 38.58% paper
General US disability Labour stats that don’t mention autism
An academic paper reporting 20% unemployment among autistic adults
A 2015 Drexel University report that found 40% of young autistic adults were not working for pay.
Despite the infographic and repeating the 85% figure several times, including in the FAQs, there was no source available for that figure.
The article also claims:
“In fact, ENNA states that nearly 80% of adults with autism are unemployed or underemployed, even though many have the skills and abilities to work.”
The link? An article that claimed 60% of autistic adults are unemployed (again, no source) and no mention of underemployment!
The article continued:
“Verywell Health estimates that the unemployment rate for adults with autism is around 85-90%.”
I’ve seen this particular claim multiple times, but none of them ever link to a source. I searched the Verywell Health site myself and couldn’t find a single article quoting that number. They do have a piece on the challenges autistic adults face, but it doesn't include employment statistics.
Finally, the article said:
“Furthermore, Forbes reports that only 32% of adults with autism are employed”
🚨Rabbit hole warning🚨
That link takes you to a Forbes article that doesn’t mention 32%!
But that article links to another Forbes article that repeats the 85% claim (with no source), which then links to…… another Forbes article about homeschooling autistic children during the Covid-19 lockdowns!
As an interesting aside, all of the Forbes pieces were written by the same person. Linking to your own work is a great way of increasing your reader numbers…
So, nothing in article 2 had a source for the 85% claim. Nor did any of the pieces they linked to.
The third Article: Autism Unemployment Rate
Don’t worry - I may have endured another painful descent into links within links that didn’t back up their claims, but I’m not going to inflict another one on you. (Feel free to have a go yourself if you want to have a practice!)
This article was full of contradictory statistics - some with sources, most without. One of them was yet another Forbes article (by the same writer as the previous ones!):
“In terms of the global unemployment rate, the National Autistic Society in the U.K. released a survey in 2016 that confirmed the 85% number”
Was this finally the holy grail?
Well… possibly!
The link in the article was dead, but I tracked down the 2016 survey of 2,000 autistic adults. It found:
16% are in full-time paid work.
A further 16% are in part-time paid work
Over three-quarters (77%) who are unemployed say they want to work
40% say they've never worked.
So yes, 84% were not in full-time employment. But that’s not the same as being unemployed. Putting aside the fact that part-time work counts as “employed”, students, parents, and carers may not be in full-time work, while not being "unemployed" in any official or economic sense.
Final clue: 2017 National Autism Indicators Report
This report stated:
“Only 14% held a job for pay in the community”
At first glance, that’s close to 85% being unemployed (although unemployment figures are not simply 100 - [the number of people working] for reasons explained above), but context matters.
This was based on a specific subgroup: adults who had recently left special education and were receiving Developmental Disability (DD) services - in other words, people with significant support needs.
The report itself explicitly cautioned:
“… is not a nationally representative survey of all adults with ASD. Findings cannot be used to make inferences to the general population of individuals on the autism spectrum.
It only reflects those:
Who qualified for state DD services
Who had significant functional impairments
Whose families or caregivers were able to navigate the system
So, not a general unemployment rate for all autistic adults.
Conclusion
I must have looked at over 30 articles and sources trying to track down the origin of the “85% unemployed” stat.
The closest I got:
The 2016 NAS UK survey: 84% not in full-time work
The 2017 U.S. Autism Indicators Report: 86% of one specific subgroup not in paid community employment
What is clear is that autistic adults do face disproportionately high rates of unemployment, higher than the general population, and often higher than people with other disabilities. Many want to work, but face barriers due to the hiring process, social communication challenges, or lack of accommodations.
But are 85% of autistic adults unemployed?
No.
If you see this stat being repeated - and sadly, with the direction of U.S. rhetoric, I fear we’ll see more of it - please push back.
There are millions of autistic people working, earning, and contributing to society. Many others contribute in unpaid ways - as students, carers, creatives, parents, or volunteers.
And let’s be clear:
A person’s intrinsic worth is not tied to their ability to pay taxes!
Fact-checking takeaway
The lesson here?
Always click the links and always check the source.
Because, if this experience is anything to go by, more often than not, they don’t back up the claim being made!
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