Policy Proposal of the Americans with Disability Act (ADA) Amendments Act of 2008

Americans with Disability Act (ADA) and its 2008 Amendment is designed to aid and assist disabled US citizens, yet several inadequacies and discriminatory aspects hinder the intended purpose. In particular, no specific informa-tion has been incorporated into the act regarding accommodations in relation to disability and workplace discrimination. With increasing number of unemployed and working US citizens filing for disability benefits, clear man-dates need to be defined in order to make the ADA act and its amendments truly serve the purpose of what it is intended to do. In this report, historical and legal aspects of ADA and its 2008 Amendment were researched using published reports, inadequacies related to employment and disability are discussed, and recommendations were proposed to make the ADA, a truly bene-ficial act that serves the society.


Introduction
A nation's progress and prosperity is intricately linked with the ability of its citizen to have a meaningful employment. Particularly, if citizens with disabilities who have the expertise and the knowledge are not supported by government by providing the resources and appropriate employment opportunities, the economic condition of the citizens as well as their self-confidence will suffer, thereby hindering the progress of a nation (Luo and Fan, 2017). The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Amendments act was passed in 2008 to rectify inconsistencies written in the ADA of 1990. The ADA was intended to help people with disabilities and not to discriminate irrespective of the type of disability. The in-

Problem Statement
Although restrictions and guidelines have been incorporated, the ADA Amend-

Proposed Policy Solution
In order to understand the US ADA policy proposal, it is important to understand the livelihood issues being faced by people with disability. In the past 50 years, the number of people tripled in terms of disability (Schwabish, 2017)  Blacks had a higher unemployment rate in 2019 (11.8 percent) than Hispanics (8.6 percent), Asians (6.7 percent), and Whites (6.6 percent)" (U.S. Department of Labor, 2020). According to Bhattacharya and Long (2015), people who have disabilities get paid less than non-disabled people and they also noticed how employment rates from the 1990's have decreased from 50% to 41%. This is an extraordinary change considering the rise in the number of people who qualify for disabilities. It was reported in 2019, that the rate of unemployment for disabled people was 9.2% whereas people who did not have a disability had an unemployment rate of 4.2% (Draeger, 2019). While the constitution says that everyone is equal and disabled individuals should not be discriminated, it seems that citizens who are considered disabled are not getting a fair chance to procure employment.
The ADA as well as the associated Amendment Act is in accordance with the Triple Aim discussed by Stanhope and Straussner (2018

Implementation Strategy and Challenges
In order to ensure the provision of providing reasonable accommodations at workplace for disabled persons be incorporated in the ADA act, a logical one senators out of one hundred have to approve the bill and then it will be taken up by a select committee consisting of the House and Senate. Members of this committee will revise it and then send it back to the house and senate for final approval. Once this is accomplished, the president will have 10 days to approve or veto the bill (U.S. House of Representatives, n.d.). The whole process is time consuming and should get bipartisan support. Any change in legislation or enactment of new legislation cannot be just accomplished by the will of elected officials or their pen strokes, but it is in the hands of the citizens who has to raise their voice and demand a change in order to bring social justice. If the citizens have the will, changing the legislation and enacting the law will be much easier to accomplish.
There are a few challenges that the ADA Amendments act of 2008 revision may cause. The first aspect will be with regards to feasibility where skeptics will take advantage. Feasibility really depends on what an entity can afford to do. proposing is related to individuals who are already employed in the company but suddenly become disabled. Some companies fire these individuals who are disabled on the job as they cannot accommodate them due to their specific disability. So, the revisions to the Act should have a provision where the employee who is disabled while in job instead of being fired, be moved to a different position that is more accommodating for their disability and something that is mutually agreed upon. By implementing this, employees will not lose their jobs, nor will the business lose anything substantial as they can still retain their loyal employee, which in turn might increase the production as well as revenues of the company.

Conclusion
In this report, the US ADA act and its 2008 Amendment were discussed highlighting the problems and challenges associated with implementing this act.
Remedies were proposed to overcome these aspects based upon the experience gained by working with unemployed individuals with disability. It is the will of the people collectively, that can make any type of moral and ethical virtue into an enforceable law, which in turn will be of the greatest help to the citizens who are being forgotten or not being taken care of. Social workers role is extremely critical in this process and it is fulfilling as well as uplifting to be able to help others in any which way one can so that a healthy and happy society prevails.

Conflicts of Interest
The author declares no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.