Easily wayyy more than that given both the loosening standards of what a disability is combined with over-diagnosis. But I get your sentiment. When I was a kid, disabled meant you were in a wheelchair or needed someone to physically feed you, and now it means you have an Adderall prescription.
People have different ideas of what "disabled" means.
Broadening the definition makes it less useful in many ways. I would consider "disabled" to mean one of:
- Unable to ambulate effectively (requires crutches or worse)
- Unable to look after oneself as an adult (for any combination of reasons)
- Unable to use tools and items most people would consider standard - eg. can't hold a pencil, write, type, whatever.
That's a fairly harsh definition of disabled, but all of these people unambiguously require accommodation because of their incapacity. It's also off the top of my head, so I'd happily broaden it if you want to argue the point.
If I can talk to someone for an entire day and not realise or notice they are disabled in some way, I question the definition being used - how helpful is it in deciding how we should allocate additional resources and help in that case?
> However, big caveat - it's self-reported. If you look at how many people get disability benefit it's around 10%.
I don't know about the UK, but in the US, in order to get social security disability, you need to have a documented disability and there's also income limits. If you have a disability, but you manage to find a career despite the disability, you'll lose eligibility for social security disability or at least you'll lose the social security payments. Depending on the disabilities in question, I think it's reasonable that 60% of people with a disability can find work that pays enough that they are no longer eligible for a disability payment and/or they've reached the age where they get a retirement/old age insurance benefit rather than disability.
Not a chance in hell.