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How Many Customers Live With a Disability, and Why It Matters for Your Business
Depending on how it is counted, between one in eight Americans and one in four American adults lives with a disability, which means a typical appointment book already holds dozens of customers who notice every step, small font and hard-to-use form.
At a glance
- The Census Bureau's American Community Survey counted about 42.5 million Americans with a disability in 2021, 13% of the civilian population outside institutions; the CDC's broader health survey puts the share of adults at more than one in four.
- Disability rises steeply with age, from 8% of people under 35 to 46% of people 75 and older, so businesses with older customers serve the most.
- For an illustrative business with 1,500 active customers, about 195 have a disability by the Census measure, and losing one in ten of them to avoidable barriers costs about $7,800 a year.
Where the number comes from
The two most cited figures measure different things, and both are useful. The Census Bureau's American Community Survey asks about six specific difficulties, in hearing, seeing, thinking and remembering, walking or climbing stairs, dressing or bathing, and running errands alone, and counts about 13% of the civilian noninstitutionalized population; a summary by Pew Research Center put that at about 42.5 million people in 2021. The CDC's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a large state-by-state health survey of adults, finds that more than one in four adults has some type of disability, with cognition (13.9%) and mobility (12.2%) the most common types.
The owner's instinct is to picture a wheelchair. We don't really get customers with disabilities. The CDC figures show that the most common disability involves concentrating, remembering or making decisions, followed by serious difficulty walking or climbing stairs, then independent living, hearing and vision, which means many of these customers are not visibly disabled and are already on the books.
What the number means for a customer list
These customers also carry real spending power. A 2018 report from the American Institutes for Research estimated the after-tax disposable income of working-age adults with disabilities at about $490 billion, and that figure leaves out retirees, the age group in which disability is most common. A parent, spouse or adult child may also book and pay alongside them, so one easy or hard visit can affect more than one customer.
| Active customers (Assumption) | 1,500 |
|---|---|
| Share with a disability (Census ACS 2021) | 13% |
| Customers with a disability (Calculated (1,500 × 13%)) | 195 |
| Share lost to an avoidable barrier (a step, a hard form, a rushed explanation) (Assumption) | 10% |
| Customers lost (Calculated (195 × 10%)) | 19.5 |
| Average spending per customer per year (Assumption) | $400 |
| Revenue given up per year (Calculated (19.5 × $400)) | $7,800 |
Illustrative example; replace every assumption with your own numbers. Using the CDC's broader measure of more than one in four adults roughly doubles the result.
The example counts only the customers themselves. Families who choose a business partly because an older parent can get in comfortably, and the reviews and referrals that follow an easy visit, sit on top of it.
How you compare
- Your customers' ages: if a large share of your customers are over 65, the Census rates of 24% (ages 65 to 74) and 46% (75 and older) are a better guide than the overall 13%.
- Your website: the WebAIM Million found detectable accessibility failures on 95.9% of one million home pages in 2026, so most competitors' sites also have room to improve.
- Your own baseline: for one week, have the front desk note any customer who needed a seat, help with a form, a quieter room or a larger print copy; that tally shows where the demand already sits.
Sources
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Disability Impacts All of Us. Disability and Health Data System (Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System).
- Leppert, R. and Schaeffer, K. 8 Facts About Americans With Disabilities. Pew Research Center, 2023. Based on the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, 2021.
- Yin, M., Shaewitz, D., Overton, C. and Smith, D.-M. A Hidden Market: The Purchasing Power of Working-Age Adults With Disabilities. American Institutes for Research, 2018.
- WebAIM. The WebAIM Million: 2026 Report.
Related reading: Customer Lifetime Value for Service Businesses, Worked Out · How Many Unhappy Customers Never Complain, and What That Hides · Accessibility for Small Service Businesses: The Space, the Website and the Booking · Serving Older Homeowners Well in Home Services
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