National Disability Employment Awareness Month, 1998

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Title 3--
The President

Proclamation 7128 of September 29, 1998

National Disability Employment Awareness Month,
1998

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

Today America is enjoying great prosperity, with the
prospect of an even brighter future in the 21st
century. Our economy is the strongest it has been in a
generation. We have created more than 16 million new
jobs in the past 5 years, and we are witnessing the
lowest inflation rate in three decades, the lowest
unemployment rate in 28 years, and the smallest welfare
rolls in 29 years. But we cannot consider ourselves
truly successful until all Americans, including the 30
million working-age adults with disabilities, have
access to the tools and opportunities they need to
achieve economic independence.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is making it
possible for millions of Americans to participate more
fully in our society. However, 8 years after the ADA's
passage, the unemployment rate among people with
disabilities is still far too high. Almost 75 percent
of working-age Americans with severe disabilities
remain unemployed. If America is to live up to its
promise of equal opportunity, and if our economy is to
continue to strengthen and expand, we must be able to
draw on the untapped energy, talents, and creativity of
this large and capable segment of our population.

Last March, I issued an Executive order to establish
the National Task Force on Employment of Adults with
Disabilities and begin to break down the remaining
barriers for people with disabilities. I charged the
Task Force with creating a coordinated and aggressive
national strategy to make equality of opportunity, full
participation, inclusion, and economic self-sufficiency
a reality for all working-age Americans with
disabilities. I have also directed the Attorney
General, the Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission, and the Administrator of the Small Business
Administration to increase public awareness of rights
and responsibilities under the ADA. It is particularly
important to reach out in this effort to the small
business community, because it employs most of our
Nation's private work force.

Employment is the best path to economic security and to
personal and professional fulfillment. I salute
disability community leaders, business and labor
leaders, government officials, community organizations,
and concerned citizens who are working together to
remove the remaining obstacles on that path so that all
Americans with disabilities have the opportunity to
contribute to our national life.

To recognize the great potential of people with
disabilities and to encourage all Americans to work
toward their full integration in the work force, the
Congress, by joint resolution approved August 11, 1945,
as amended (36 U.S.C. 155), has designated October of
each year as ``National Disability Employment Awareness
Month.''

NOW, THEREFORE, I, WILLIAM J. CLINTON, President of the
United States of America, do hereby proclaim October
1998 as National Disability Employment Awareness Month.
I call upon government officials, educators, labor
leaders, employers, and the people of the United States
to observe this month with appropriate programs and
activities that reaffirm our determination to fulfill
both the letter and the spirit of the Americans with
Disabilities Act.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
twenty-ninth day of September, in the year of our Lord
nineteen hundred and ninety-eight, and of the
Independence of the United States of America the two
hundred and twenty-third.