On Jan. 20, wasting little time during his first 24 hours in office, president Donald Trump issued a memorandum terminating federal remote work arrangements for millions of government employees. It was a pleasing move to many Republican lawmakers, the authors of a fistful of bills seeking to monitor or cull remote workforces, and to Trump's corporate supporters, many of whom have rolled out their own in-person work requirements over the last year. Return-to-office (RTO) mandates — eschewing the opinions of experts who have found numerous positive benefits to telework — followed, as the new leader established a hardline on telework.

Such moves, paired with slashes to the federal workforce, have been praised by RTO's proponents as wins for productivity and reduced spending, with portions of the employees forced to choose between in-person work or leaving their position. But few have acknowledged that the brunt of these decisions will be shouldered by already at-risk workers.

The real people weighing the RTO ultimatum

"Really good people — who are federal employees who have disabilities — are losing their job, not because of their performance, but because of something else," explained Katy Neas. Neas is the president and CEO of disability rights organization The Arc and a former legislative assistant within the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Disability Policy, a federal body that oversaw historic legislation like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). "The federal government has always been a place where people with disabilities have thrived, because it's big enough that they could get health insurance, and they could get the accommodations that they need in order to be successful in the world of work."

And that's underselling it. The federal government boasts the highest percentage of people with disabilities in its workforce, with state governments following closely behind. Neas explains that before the passage of the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits health insurance discrimination and opens up Medicaid access for people with disabilities, many flocked to the federal government because of its stable health coverage.

"For as long as the record has been kept, people with disabilities are in the workforce at a significantly lower rate than people without disabilities," said Dan Stewart, managing attorney for education and employment for the National Disability Rights Network (NDRN). Across all demographics, people with disabilities have lower employment rates and are much more likely to be self-employed or take on part-time work — many more people with disabilities are employed without pay or at subminimum wages than with.

But those numbers have finally shifted. In the five years since workforces moved en masse to work from home arrangements amid a global pandemic, remote work has, on the whole, increased productivity and led to higher wages across sectors, and it's also increased the number of people with disabilities in the workforce. Employment for people with disabilities was at 22.7 percent in 2024 — a historic high since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began compiling the numbers.

"As technology has evolved, more people can demonstrate their abilities than ever before," said Neas. Greater shares of the disabled workforce are working remotely than those without disabilities, according to recent reports, and flexible work schedules were among the most granted accommodations for workers with disabilities.

If a societal goal is to have people working, [remote work] is a tool to do it — especially for people with disabilities, but not exclusively for people with disabilities.
– Dan Stewart

A historically wrought battle, workplace accommodation processes were positively impacted by the pandemic's normalization of remote work — a necessary cultural shift in an increasingly unhealthy work-life relationship. The ADA, which requires employers provide reasonable accommodations for their workers, does not specifically necessitate the option of remote work. Workers, instead, argued for remote work options with their respective employers for decades. Five years ago, as the majority of workers moved online, those conversations became immeasurably easier.

"What the pandemic did was broaden our horizons about what a reasonable accommodation is," Neas explained. "We also learned that one size has never fit all. [E]verybody's going to have unique needs during the work day that are necessary for them to get the work done. We've learned to be a little more accepting of that nuance within the work day, which I think is good for all of us."

Inadequate support for workers with disabilities has repercussions not just on individuals, but the economy as a whole, Stewart explained. "From one standpoint, more workers is just simply good business. We're tapping into the skills, the talents, the contributions of people with disabilities, and remote work does tend to facilitate that. If a societal goal is to have people working, this is a tool to do it — especially for people with disabilities, but not exclusively for people with disabilities."

Going further, nearly 45 million Americans live with a disability — about half of those people are between the ages of 60-64, which is still well within the age range for employed Americans. The older workforce, usually defined as workers 65 years and older, has doubled since the 1980s and is steadily growing, as well. And as the average ages for an American worker increases, a higher percentage of the labor force will need disability-related accommodations in their lifetimes.

"It's critical to see people with disabilities as productive, contributing citizens of not only local communities, but also over the national economy — to see people with disabilities as having an immense untapped social and economic capital that is being imperiled by the different cuts that we're seeing," said Stewart.

Diverse workforces, made up of women, parents, caregivers, and workers with disabilities, are squaring up against a harsher workplace reality under the narrative of the "great return." And, even as the country celebrates the 35th anniversary of the ADA this year, people with disabilities may be entering a new stretch of accessibility barriers.

The impact of attacking workplace accommodations

While many workplaces have leaned into remote hybrid work, the longevity of telework has remained in question, and the recent push for federal RTO policies is not the first attack on remote work that's raised alarm bells among disability advocates. In 2023, as corporations like Amazon and Google shifted back to in-person work, disability rights groups argued the shift would disproportionately affect workers with disabilities, many of whom required greater transportation and workplace accommodations. Many argue that forced in-person work could lead to a rise in workplace discrimination or ableist micro-aggressions, as well.

The removal of universalized remote work policies may also dangerously single out employees in need of accommodations — a kind of surveillance that will make it easier to pinpoint and potentially target workers with disabilities.

More recently, Amazon revised its disability policies, making it more difficult for employees to receive remote work exemptions as part of disability accommodations.

A broad reversal of such protections, coupled with the anti-DEI narrative pushed by the Trump administration, may lead to a revitalization of discriminatory, or even segregationist, policies that silo workers with disabilities into specific, unskilled jobs, negating years of effort to enter the "real" workforce. The removal of universalized remote work policies may also dangerously single out employees in need of accommodations — a kind of surveillance, Stewart explained, that will make it easier to pinpoint and potentially target workers with disabilities. The same behavior has the potential to negatively impact students with disabilities, as well, as the Department of Education comes under fire.

The Trump administration has done little to reinforce the country's current commitments to its disabled citizens, instead introducing a sweeping anti Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) agenda, part of a wave of executive orders directing severe cuts to federal agencies. The president has refashioned the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), led by Trump appointee Andrea R. Lucas, into a vessel for reinforcing the anti-DEIA policies of his administration.

Legal and civil rights advocates have been outspoken against such moves, including the American Federation of Government Employees and American Civil Liberties Union, which has specifically outlined the rights of federal employees with disabilities under the administration's new directives.

In this case, and somewhat ironically, bureaucracy may work in the workforce's favor. "You still have the law," said Neas. "With some of these big tech companies asking people to come in five days a week — the ADA still applies to them. My fear is that we set these arbitrary standards that somehow have to be applied uniformly, when we have laws that say that is, in fact, the absolute wrong way to go."

It's ultimatums like these, however, that Trump (and federal allies like Department of Government Efficiency leader Elon Musk) hope will thin out the federal workforce And who among employees will be impacted first? Those with little choice.

"There's more to come," said Stewart. "What I worry about is the lack of funding or lack of staffing for civil rights enforcement at the Office for Civil Rights or at the EEOC. So while the laws themselves, like the ADA, the IDEA, and Section 504 are still on the books, there needs to be an effective way for people to avail themselves of their rights. If the administrative options are being lost or are not effective due to reductions in force… Justice delayed is justice denied."

There's still work to be done for those who are choosing to go back to work, too. Federal workers relocating to central offices have been confronted by the impact of years of telework, including certain infrastructure expenditures that had since been rendered moot, like basic physical accommodations such as parking spots, desks, and even toilet paper. Workers with disabilities, now even more reliant on federal protections through laws like the ADA, may face additional hurdles.

"We are going to lose their expertise and their confidence," Neas said of disabled workers who choose or are forced to leave the workforce due to new policy decisions such as these. "That brain drain is a really bad thing for us all."

Both Neas and Stewart reiterated that the goal of strengthening a workplace accommodation like remote work isn't to force everyone to follow suit. It's to offer choice. Couched in productivity-first language, "the great return" brews greater distrust about employer flexibility and care, threatening to exacerbate misconceptions about disabled workers and reinforce the social stigma around workplace accommodations and "laziness."

"Why do people need accommodations? They need accommodations so they can do the job," reiterated Neas. "There are tangible, pragmatic, job-related reasons people need these accommodations, and we need to not lose sight of that."

Vicky