A Statistical Understanding of Disability in the LGBT Community

Abstract

For the first time ever, the United States Census Bureau began collecting data on the LGBT community with Phase 3.2 of the Household Pulse Survey. The Household Pulse Survey assesses how residents of the United States are doing during the COVID-19 pandemic. The data provided by the Household Pulse Survey Week 34 through Week 39 provides information to understand the lives of LGBT residents of the United States and how the LGBT community as a whole is doing economically. This study merges six weeks of the Household Pulse Survey, for a total of 382,908 survey responses. The sample represents a population of 250,265,449 adult residents aged 18 and older in the United States. This study provides the first nationally representative sample of residents of the United States that identify as transgender. This study specifically focuses on LGBT people with disabilities but highlights disparities facing transgender disabled U.S. adult residents. Disability is defined in the Household Pulse Survey as a severe or total impairment of those with seeing, hearing, remembering, and mobility disability types. The data indicates significant disparities for LGBT people compared to non-LGBT people, specifically in terms of economic considerations like work loss, household finances, and mental health.

Keywords:

• Census data
• COVID-19
• Disability
• Employment
• Household Pulse Survey
• LGBT
• LGBTQ
• Mental health
• Transgender

Disclosure Statement

There are no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Debra Brucker, Ph.D. and Megan Henly, Ph.D. in consultation of this article. This article was developed as an original work in my Postdoctoral Research Associate position at the University of New Hampshire’s Institute on Disability.

Additional information

Funding

Funding for this study was provided by the Advanced Rehabilitation Research and Training (ARRT) Program on Employment Policy at the University of New Hampshire, which is funded by the National Institute for Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research, in the Administration for Community Living, at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) under grant number 90AREM000401. The contents do not necessarily represent the policy of DHHS and you should not assume endorsement by the federal government (EDGAR, 75.620 (b)).