Employing Persons With Serious Mental Illness Workers with mental illness, even serious disorders, have occupational profiles similar to those of persons without mental illness.

Data from various national surveys find that approximately half the population with mental disorders is gainfully employed across the entire range of occupations; such persons have an employment rate of about two-thirds that of the general population. More than a third of persons with serious mental illness also work, and many hold high-status po- sitions. Among those with schizophrenia, a diagnosis associated with high impairment, only slightly more than a fifth are at work, and 12 percent are working full time. Approximately two-thirds are enrolled in federal disability insurance programs. Our analyses indicate con- siderable diversity of jobs among persons with various mental disorders. Most persons with mental illness want to work, and some with even the most serious mental disorders hold jobs requiring high levels of functioning. Educational attainment is the strongest predictor of employment in high-ranking occupations among both the general population and per- sons with mental disorders. I t i s w ell e stablished t hat m ental i llnesses such as schizophrenia and major mood disorders cause considerable distress and disability. As a re- sult, persons with these disorders work less than others in the general popula- tion do and are overrepresented in public and private disability programs. Once enrolled in the Social Security Administration's Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) programs, few people leave. This paper seeks to go beyond these common observations to offer a richer, more complicated picture of the links between mental illness and employment. A variety of factors reinforce the perception that persons with mental illness are limited in their work participation. Such persons constituted approximately 34 percent of working-age enrollees in the SSI program and 27 percent of SSDI beneficiaries in 1999. 1 Moreover, many mental health programs that seek to assist persons with mental illness to gain and retain employment focus their efforts on placing clients in unskilled and semiskilled positions, which reinforces the con- cept that this represents the range of work such clients can do. Finally, the stigma