In the United States:
- An estimated 20% of the population (40.8 million) has some kind of disability, and 10% (27.3 million ) has a severe disability.
- Approximately 10.4 million people in the US (about 4%) are visually impaired or blind.
- About 5.7 million elderly individuals (2% of total US population) are blind or visually impaired.
- About 57,300 of children (.2% of total US population) are legally blind.
The 27.3 million individuals with severe disabilities are limited in the way that they can use
the Internet. The disheartening aspect of this fact is that the know-how and the technology to
overcome these limitations already exist, but they are greatly under-utilized, mostly because
Web developers do not know enough about the issue to design pages that are accessible to children
and adults with disabilities.