People with disabilities are three times less likely to be employed and, when they are working, they’re earning 75 cents for each dollar others are paid.

Between 2008 and 2010, individuals with disabilities accounted for 6 percent of the workforce, according to data released this week from the U.S. Census.

Such workers were most often employed in service and administrative support roles. Positions as janitors or building cleaners, cashiers, dishwashers and in retail sales were among the most common cited.

For their labor, more than half of workers with disabilities earned less than $25,000 annually, the Census found.

“Even within the largest occupations, employed workers with disabilities, on average, earned less than similarly employed workers without disabilities,” said Jennifer Cheeseman Day, the assistant chief for employment characteristics at the Census Bureau.

The data, which was collected as part of the Census’ American Community Survey, is just the latest to highlight the persistent struggle facing people with disabilities to keep up in the workforce. As of February, the U.S. Department of Labor found a 12.3 percent unemployment rate among this population.

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