Remote work has finally made me — a legally-blind person — feel like I can thrive at my job. I’m sad it took this long.
“I haven’t told my new employer about my vision impairment because, for the first time, it doesn’t matter,” says Rachel Christian.
By Rachel Christian
As someone in the blind and low-vision community, the expansion of remote work has been an economic game-changer.
Normally, people with visual impairments face major hurdles in the workforce, from overcoming hiring discrimination to securing reliable transportation — less than half of US adults with visual impairments were in the labor force in 2019.
Transportation is often a major barrier to steady employment for the blind and visually impaired
A survey by the American Federation for the Blind found that 38% of people with blindness or low vision had turned down a job because of transportation concerns.
I experienced this first-hand as a 21-year-old college student. I was a year-and-a-half from graduation and a prestigious daily newspaper internship was at my fingertips.
I’d been freelancing for the paper for a semester, and had built a rapport with the news editor. I submitted my…
