10 The Americans with Disabilities Act, which went into effect in 1992, requires firms to provide reasonable accommodations to employees with disabilities.

Firms, for example, must make their workplaces accessible to employees with physical disabilities. The act also makes it unlawful for firms to discriminate in the hiring or firing of people with disabilities. A firm, for example, can’t fire a secretary who lost his hearing; rather the firm would either have to find the secretary a comparable job or make reasonable accommodations so the now deaf secretary could still perform his job. The purpose of the act is to help people with disabilities, and many Americans with disabilities have benefited from the act. But how might the act harm some disabled Americans?