Wyoming assessment of rehabilitation needs

While the increase in the aging population can be reliably predicted, it is difficult to estimate the growth in the number of individuals with “significant” disabilities. According to the 2003 WYARN, “The disparity of definitions of disability used in different programs and data sources presents difficulties in correlating data from different sources. All 2000 census data on disabilities is derived from questions that ask respondents if their disability causes “any” limitation in employment, self-care or leaving home without assistance. These categories do not equate well with the Vocational Rehabilitation definitions of “significant” or “most significant” disabilities…” “The only remaining approach to projecting active caseloads of individuals with significant disabilities is to calculate growth in historic caseload levels, as is done in Table 23 (Planning Group 4)”. Using this method, the 2003 WYARN predicts that the number of annual applicants with “significant” disabilities will increase from 978 in 2000 to 1,018 in 2010.

Table 22: Population and Age-group Forecast 2003 – 2010 Source: 2003 WYARN , from U.S. Census
	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
Total Population	498,698	500,494	502,292	504,643	507,391	509,845	511,722	513,928
Pct. Change	0.5	0.4	0.4	0.5	0.5	0.5	0.4	0.4
Age 5 – 19	111,277	110,788	110,328	110,169	110,285	110,443	110,416	110,239
Pct. Change	-0.7	-0.4	-0.4	-0.1	0.1	0.1	0.0	-0.2
Age 20 – 24	33,853	33,602	33,208	32,838	32,321	31,801	31,588	31,500
Pct. Change	0.2	-0.7	-1.2	-1.1	-1.6	-1.6	-0.7	-0.3
Age 25 – 44	134,568	133,610	132,965	132,482	132,282	132.280	132,006	132,227
Pct. Change	-0.7	-0.7	-0.5	-0.4	-0.2	0.0	-0.2	0.2
Age 45 – 64	127,087	129,396	131,485	133,567	135,394	136,214	136,911	137,479
Pct. Change	2.2	1.8	1.6	1.6	1.4	0.6	0.5	0.4
Age 65 and over	60,207	61,169	62,181	63,271	64,593	66,481	68,084	69,636
Pct. Change	1.7	1.6	1.7	1.8	2.1	2.9	2.4	2.3