[Nfbmt] Disabled workers left in the cold on minimum wage

[James Aldrich]

From:Pare, 
JohnTo:state-affiliate-leadership-list at nfbnet.orgSubject:[State-affiliate-leadership-list] 
Fortune: Disabled workers left in the cold on minimum wage


Team:

Anil is featured throughout the article below.  Great job Anil!

John






Disabled workers left in the cold on minimum wage

By Claire Zillman, reporterFebruary 12, 2014: 11:19 AM ET





Disabled workers are not subject to the federal minimum wage on account 
of a law that was passed 76 years ago.

FORTUNE -- In the ongoing fight to raise the minimum wage in the U.S., 
advocates of a nationwide hike often refer to a few notable dates to 
highlight how long it's been since the hourly rate has changed.

2009: When Congress last raised the federal minimum wage to $7.25

1991: The last time Congress raised the federal minimum wage for tipped 
workers to $2.13.

Well, here's another: 1938, the last time Congress addressed how 
disabled Americans are paid. At the time, the legislature decided 
disabled Americans ought to be exempt from receiving the federal minimum wage.

That year, Congress instituted what's known as the 14c exemption to the 
Fair Labor Standards Act, which allows employers to obtain a special 
wage certificate from the Department of Labor that waives their 
obligation to pay disabled individuals the federally mandated minimum 
wage. The 420,000 disabled employees who are now subject to 14c instead 
earn what's called a commensurate wage that employers determine by 
testing the productivity of a non-disabled person and comparing it to 
what a disabled person can do. That ratio dictates the disabled 
employee's pay. (According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, a 
disability is anything that limits your everyday activities.) So if the 
test employee can screw on 100 pen caps in an hour, and the disabled 
work completes 50, the latter employee will receive as little as half 
the wage of his non-disabled counterpart, with some adjustment made to 
account for personal time, fatigue, and delay.

Congress passed the original legislation 76 years ago because it 
"rightfully felt that these individuals had the desire to be part of 
the fabric of America," says Anil Lewis, director of advocacy and 
policy for the National Federation of the Blind. But that was a 
different time; when "discrimination was inevitable because service 
systems were based on a charity model, rather than empowerment and 
self-determination and when societal low expectations for people with 
disabilities colored policy making," the National Council on Disability says.

Today, advocates for the disabled say that the legislative relic is 
contributing to disabled individuals' modern day plight.

When the 14c exemption was first passed, it required that disabled 
employees in competitive industries earn at least 75% of the minimum 
wage. In 1966, that requirement dropped to 50%, and in 1986, the floor 
was removed altogether. Fifteen years later, a report by the Government 
Accountability Office found that so-called sub-minimum wage workers 
earned on average $2.15 an hour. In 2011, the Bureau of Labor 
Statistics found that people with disabilities are three times more 
likely to live in poverty, and only 18.7% of people with disabilities 
participate in the workforce, compared to 68.3% of non-disabled individuals.

Chester Finn, now a client advocate for the New York Office for People 
With Developmental Disabilities and who's visually impaired, was 
employed under 14c at a workshop for the disabled in western New York 
in the 1990s. He told Fortune that he started out making $4 for two 
full weeks of 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. work days. Six years later, his 
paycheck had reached $100, but still comes out to less than minimum wage.

He paid for his apartment with social security checks. "The wages never 
would've gotten me that," he says. "I never could have even bought 
groceries." He left the workshop after meeting the commissioner of the 
OPWDD and pitching his skills as a self-advocate.

In exiting his sub-minimum wage arrangement, Finn is an exception. The 
14c program is intended to provide temporary employment for disabled 
workers and train them to enter a normal work environment, yet the GAO 
found that less than 5% of the disabled workers in the program ever 
leave it for a job in the broader community.

In his State of the Union address in January, President Barack Obama 
proposed raising the minimum wage for federal contracted workers to 
$10.10 by executive order, but the plan initially exempted federal 
contractors that use the 14c program from paying their disabled workers 
the new rate. Advocacy groups immediately called for the president to 
change course.

The National Council on Disability said in a Feb. 3 letter that if the 
Obama Administration "wants to stamp out income inequality for all 
Americans, including Americans with disabilities" it should reconsider 
its decision to not apply the raised minimum wage to people with 
disabilities. On Wednesday, when the White House released the final 
version of its executive order, which is set to be signed Wednesday 
afternoon, it clearly stated that disabled workers would receive the 
new minimum wage. "Under current law, workers whose productivity is 
affected because of their disabilities may be paid less than the wage 
paid to others doing the same job under certain specialized certificate 
programs. Under this Executive Order, all individuals working under 
service or concessions contracts with the federal government will be 
covered by the same $10.10 per hour minimum wage protections," the order says.

Lewis of the National Federation of the Blind says that this effort by 
advocates was mainly symbolic since the executive order will apply to a 
small population of people and because federal contracted workers often 
make more than minimum wage to begin with. "It's not an argument for or 
against the minimum wage," he says, "People with disabilities should 
not be exempted from it regardless of what it is."

Advocates for the disabled have pushed for reform through the Fair 
Wages for Workers with Disabilities Act, which was introduced to the 
House of Representatives in February 2013. The bill, sponsored by 
Republican Representative Gregg Harper of Mississippi, would bar the 
Labor Department from granting sub-minimum wage certificates to 
employers and repeal the existing certificates over the course of three 
years. The bill has 62 co-sponsors, but not enough support to merit a 
committee vote.

ACCESS, a coalition of nonprofits that employ the disabled, is against 
phasing out 14c. In a letter opposing the National Council on 
Disability's 2012 recommendation to end the program, it said that 
"hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities will most likely 
become unemployed or lose the opportunity to become employed in the 
future." A commensurate wage, the letter said, is in place to "prevent 
the curtailment of employment" for individuals who are "not capable of 
meeting productivity standards."

In a statement announcing the legislation, Harper's office said that 
instead of pushing people with disabilities into sheltered, sub-minimum 
wage employment as current labor laws do, the new legislation would 
facilitate access to alternative work or training opportunities that 
are "more cost-effective and produce more competitive outcomes."

Lewis points to a program called Employment First as one viable option. 
It helps disabled individuals discover what they're good at and finds 
customized, inclusive employment opportunities that fit those skills. 
For instance, if someone with disabilities can sort hangers by color in 
a sheltered workshop setting, he can sort color-coded mail in an office 
building. The difference, Lewis says, is that the employee is in an 
inclusive environment, where his coworkers can see him doing the job.

"When we start shifting the paradigm away from seeing the disabled as 
needing to be cared for to one in which they can be part of the 
workforce, then you'll see the creation of other jobs," Lewis says. 
Programs like Employment First "start with the belief that the person 
can," Lewis says. The sub-minimum wage system "starts with the person cannot."



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