A group of lawmakers in Congress is competing to end the minimum wage for the disabled, a policy that affects about 122,000 people country.
Minimum wage for employees in the US range from $7.25 to $15 per hour, and many activists are constantly fighting to increase that amount. But now, some employers can pay people with disabilities far below the state minimum, with many earning less than $3.50 per houraccording to a report by the US Government Accountability Office.
On February 27, a bipartisan group of senators and representatives reintroduced Transformation for the Competitive Integrated Employment Actwhich will stop that practice.
“Paying workers less than minimum wage is unacceptable. Everyone should be paid fairly, and Americans with disabilities are no exception,” Senator Bob Casey (D-Pa.), who is leading the legislative effort, said in a statement. “This common-sense bipartisan legislation will lift up people with disabilities by raising wages and creating competitive employment in workplaces that employ workers with and without disabilities.”
Under Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, employers can request a certificate from the Department of Labor that allows them to pay disabled employees below the minimum wage. GAO reported that 1,567 employers did in 2019 alone.
The subminimum wage of disabled employees is determined by a time trial conducted by the employer every six months to compare the output and productivity of work with non-disabled employees.
“For employees, there is extreme stress. They are tested every six months, and if they do not perform at a certain level, the pay will be cut,” explained Jewelyn Cosgrove, vice president of the Washington, DC, non-profit Melwood disability area.
Tawana Freeman, a 52-year-old disabled woman, began working at Melwood in 1996, when the non-profit organization had a 14(c) certificate and paid minimum wage to disabled employees. As a single mother of three children at the time, she remembers feeling pressured to perform well for the six-month trial period to avoid salary cuts.
“I was like ‘No, I can’t fail. I have to prove myself, I have to make them know I’m worthy,'” Freeman told HuffPost.
Freeman said her salary was cut several times, forcing her to rely on family and friends to help her pay the bills. He still works at Melwood, but doesn’t have to endure time and minimum wage probation because the nonprofit voluntarily surrendered its Section 14(c) certification in 2014 after learning of the detrimental effects it has on disabled employees.
“Oh, I feel good. I don’t have to ask anyone for money. I know what I want … so now I’m fine,” Freeman said. “We feel normal, like normal working people [who] go to work and get paid for eight hours, and it feels great.
The History of the Subminimum Wage
Melwood President and CEO Larysa Kautz noted that for a long time, society saw disabled people as untrainable and unemployed. People with disabilities, especially people with intellectual, cognitive and developmental disabilities, are seen as inferior because of the way they are disabled, and the subminimum wage is used as an incentive for employers to hire.
“[Section 14(c) is] an antiquated law enacted in the 1930s because frankly, no one thought that disabled people could do ‘real work,'” Kautz told HuffPost.
“This is a good intention. This is done because we as a society think that no one will hire someone with a significant disability – or any disability, really, because it doesn’t have to be significant – unless there is an incentive for the employer,” he continued.
Proponents of the subminimum wage now believe that it is the only option for people with disabilities and that without it employees will lose a source of income, Kautz said.
But the landscape has changed drastically in the 21st century, with more job opportunities and alternatives available than in 1938 when the Fair Labor Standards Act was passed.
The US has seen tremendous improvements in assistive technology and other tools that can help people with disabilities in the workplace over the past few decades. And in 2014, the Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act ensure that jobseekers – including disabled people – have access to employment, training and support services to help them succeed in the labor market.
“It’s allowed to continue to rely on some of these old laws instead of moving into the future and into a place where we can’t serve people with disabilities today. This just gives us another reason to discriminate and get rid of them and not try to find solutions and remove barriers,” Kautz said. .
The Fight to End the Subminimum Wage
There are efforts to eliminate the minimum wage for the disabled at the federal level. At July 2022at One Ability federal program, which is one of the largest sources of employment for people with disabilities, eliminated the use of the 14(c) minimum wage in the program.
But the Transformation to Competitive Integrated Employment Actoriginally introduced in 2021, will have the broadest impact of any attempt to end the minimum wage.
Eliminating discriminatory practices will help people with disabilities achieve financial independence and participate more in the community as they transition to competitive employment and an integrated work environment.
The law is now bipartisan support from Sens. Casey and Steve Daines (R-Mont.) and Reps. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) and Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.). Despite the bipartisan coalition for this bill, Cosgrove said he’s not sure the legislation will pass in the current political environment.
And if it does not pass, it will be up to the individual country to remove the 14 (c) certificate.
Some countries are starting to get rid of the 85-year-old law. According to First Labor Support Association13 states in the US have it laws that are implemented to eliminate the subminimum waged people, with pending legislation on Virginia and other countries.
The GAO also found that between 2010 and 2019, the number of employers authorized under Section 14(c) to pay the subminimum wage was cut in half. With some states eliminating 14(c) certificates amid this trend, Cosgrove believes minimum wage policies will disappear in the next five years.
“I think this policy will disappear, and I think at some point, the political calculus is a problem to get rid of it will also disappear,” Cosgrove.