Have you heard? New research indicates that there may be a relationship between your hearing and your income. A new survey by the Better Hearing Institute shows that working Americans who ignore their hearing problems are losing at least $100 billion a year in earnings. The average amount of income lost by working people who don't get hearing aids ranges from $1,000 a year-for those with mild hearing loss-to $12,000 a year for those with profound hearing loss. However, on average, the income decline due to hearing loss can be cut in half by wearing a hearing aid, the research revealed. Full Story

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Deaf man realizes dream of being cop

July 2006

A familiar face on the Rochester Institute of Technology campus is pursuing his dream, one that makes him a rarity: becoming a police officer despite a hearing loss. Anthony Wallace, an All-American wrestler when he attended RIT, had worked as a campus safety officer there since 2003. His last day of work was June 30. He flew to Alaska two days later and was sworn in as a police officer in Hoonah, Alaska, on July 6. Full Story

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Court: UPS Discriminated Against Deaf

A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld a lower court ruling that UPS Inc. violated anti-discrimination laws by automatically barring the deaf and hearing-impaired from driving parcel delivery trucks. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson's 2004 ruling that the Atlanta-based company's practices breach the Americans with Disabilities Act. Henderson, in a class-action case representing as many as 1,000 would-be drivers, ruled that the hearing impaired should "be given the same opportunities that a hearing applicant would be given to show that they can perform the job of package-car driver safely and effectively." Full Story

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Court to Reconsider if UPS Can Bar Deaf Drivers from Vans

April 2007

A federal appeals court in San Francisco announced today it will reconsider whether United Parcel Service Inc. can automatically bar deaf drivers from driving lightweight delivery trucks. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a bid by the Atlanta-based company for a rehearing of the case by an expanded panel of 15 judges. The larger panel will review a decision in which three judges of the court said last year the company can't bar all deaf drivers from driving lightweight vans that weigh 10,000 pounds or less, known as package cars. Full Story

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Absenteeism Higher Among Hearing Impaired People

August 2007

The extra energy expended on overcoming hearing problems takes its toll on hearing-impaired employees. This may explain why hearing-impaired employees are likely to take more sick-days than their colleagues with normal hearing. However, a few common sense precautions have been shown to help hearing-impaired employees perform as reliably as their colleagues. Hearing problems can wear on a hearing-impaired individual’s mental health. A Dutch survey among people in the workplace found that hearing-impaired employees are five times more likely than their co-workers with normal hearing to experience stress so severe that they must take sick-days. Full Story

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Court orders judge to reconsider ruling on deaf truck drivers

December 2007

A federal appeals court ordered a San Francisco judge on Friday to reconsider his ruling requiring United Parcel Service to give its deaf employees a chance to compete for jobs as drivers of small delivery trucks. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 13-2 that U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson had used the wrong standard in his 2004 decision that UPS was discriminating against deaf people with safe driving records by refusing to consider them for commercial driving jobs. Henderson allowed the plaintiffs to show that they were qualified for the jobs based on their driving records, and failed to require them to show that they were capable of driving delivery trucks, the court said. The court didn't say how that should be done, but stressed that it was still up to the company to prove its policy is a legitimate safety measure. Full Story

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Federal Hiring of People with Disabilities Plummets

January 2008

The federal government is becoming an increasingly unwelcome place for people with disabilities to work, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Jan. 15. Employment of people with disabilities hit its lowest point in 22 years in fiscal 2006, the EEOC said. Data for 2007 is not yet available. The federal government employed 23,490 disabled people in fiscal 2006, which is about 0.97 percent of the federal work force. At the peak in 1994, 1.24 percent of the federal work force was disabled. At the lowest point in 1984, about 0.96 percent of the federal work force was disabled. At the same time, harassment complaints have steadily increased since 2003. Disabled employees filed 1,393 harassment complaints in fiscal 2003 and filed 1,602 complaints in 2006. What’s more, most managers don’t seem to understand how to accommodate disabled people. Many agencies haven’t made hiring them a priority, and an obtuse hiring process may discourage applicants, the EEOC said in its report. The government is not living up to its obligations, EEOC Commissioner Christine Griffin said. Full Story