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new disabled south
It’s Long Past Time to End Subminimum Wages for Disabled Workers
Segregated, subminimum wage jobs deprive disabled people of the chance to know what we’re capable of when our needs are valued and met.
Jan 16, 2025
After years of advocacy from the disabled community, the Department of Labor is proposing a rule that would end the issuance of 14(c) certificates, which enable businesses to pay subminimum wages to disabled workers.
If you’re unfamiliar with Section 14(c) of the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, you might be shocked to learn that it is, in fact, legal to pay disabled workers below the minimum wage. Companies across the country can request 14(c) certificates that give them license to pay disabled workers far below poverty wages. It’s a practice that has been present for decades, but there is once again movement toward making 14(c) a thing of the past.
Ending this practice is long overdue, and is desperately needed to keep disabled people out of poverty. In the South, where my organization New Disabled South works, poverty is higher than anywhere else in the country. And there are more 14(c) certificates in the South than any other region in the nation. We know that disabled people live in poverty at twice the rate of nondisabled people—which means that there is simply no reason to keep disabled people in poverty by paying them poverty wages. It is unconscionable.
Calling this a “special” wage is an insult to the disability community, which deserves to thrive and live with dignity.
Proponents of 14(c) certificates have emphasized the supposed merits of these certificates, saying that they provide people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) the opportunities to work that they otherwise wouldn’t have. One argument that gets perpetuated often is that it’s better to pay folks with IDD something rather than nothing at all. This is perhaps the most disturbing justification imaginable—implying that sheltered workshops are sufficient options for people who “wouldn’t otherwise be employable.” In truth, segregated, subminimum wage jobs deprive disabled people of the chance to know what we’re capable of when our needs are valued and met. We rise to the occasion when employers, family advocates, caregivers, regulatory agencies, and legislators meet their responsibilities to us. Many more disabled people would be capable of competitive integrated employment—and more generally, would be better able to reach our highest potential—if we are first provided with fair wages, in addition to wrap-around support that allows us to improve our skills and do our jobs in an accessible environment.
Decades of research demonstrate that segregated, subminimum wage jobs generate higher costs for employers and worse outcomes for disabled people. Plus, employment rates for disabled people improve in states that end 14(c). What is truly needed is Competitive Integrated Employment (CIE), which ensures that disabled people get paid fairly and have opportunities for employment in their community, as opposed to being segregated from it. Many more of us would be capable of CIE if we were provided with the integrated opportunities afforded under Olmstead and the reasonable accommodations protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), including those that teach and allow us to communicate via augmentative and alternative communication (AAC).
Arguments favoring the continued use of 14(c) certificates are primarily based on fear or misunderstanding of the current policy and programmatic landscape. The biggest misconception is that payments above subminimum wage will disqualify disabled employees from receiving the public benefits they require. However, two existing options for mitigating that possibility are ABLE Accounts and Medicaid “buy-in” programs.
ABLE accounts are savings accounts that allow disabled people to save money without it counting toward the asset limits associated with eligibility for SSI, Medicaid, SNAP, and other government assistance programs. Medicaid “buy-in” programs allow disabled workers to access, sometimes in exchange for a premium, the home- and community-based services that are not provided under employer-sponsored or other private health insurance plans. Forty-seven states and D.C. have Medicaid “buy-in” programs. No one should have to choose between keeping a job and keeping their healthcare, and this program makes it possible for disabled people to have both.
ABLE accounts and Medicaid “buy-in” programs must be expanded to eliminate disincentives to work. Income and asset limits associated with eligibility for government assistance programs must also be raised to align with the rising cost of living across the country, particularly for disabled people. But even in the absence of those policy changes, the finalization of DOL’s proposed 14(c) rule will still be beneficial.
This is what equity and inclusion looks like, not continuing the standard set by Section 14(c) for low quality of life, inequality, and economic suffering. Proponents of the 14(c) program refer to subminimum wages as the “Special Minimum Wage,” a stunningly offensive term aimed at diminishing the harm that paying these wages does to disabled workers. As of 2019, the majority of 14(c) employees were earning less than $3.40 an hour, or $213.76 per month, while—as I highlighted two years ago—the executive directors of many of these workplaces made five- and six-figure salaries. Calling this a “special” wage is an insult to the disability community, which deserves to thrive and live with dignity.
The Department of Labor is accepting public comment through January 17, meaning there is still time to encourage them to finalize the proposed rule and finally end the 14(c) program once and for all. To learn more about DOL’s proposed rule and how to submit comments by January 17, check out this Plain Language explainer and action alert from the Autistic Self Advocacy Network.
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No, the ADA Did Not Fix Ableism in America
Disabled people have waited and struggled for decades for another round of legislative and cultural justice—and we are fervently organizing for it with renewed energy.
Jul 31, 2023
Every year in July, like clockwork, many Americans repeat the myth that one law passed three decades ago—the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA,—cured America of ableism.
I’m not just talking about former Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.) saying that “under the ADA, we are all winners” in 1990. Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) tweeted two years ago in celebration of the ADA’s “equal access and opportunity for all,” and Minnesota State Rep. Liz Lee said last year that the ADA “ensured that all people deserve equal respect and treatment in all aspects of life.”
Many disabled people can also rattle off stories about bosses and colleagues telling them how the ADA fixed ableism.
“ADA is only the beginning. It is not a solution. Rather, it is an essential foundation on which solutions will be constructed.”
The truth: the ADA, passed on July 26, 1990, isn’t enough to defeat ableism—and it never has been. Disabled people have waited and struggled for decades for another round of legislative and cultural justice—and we are fervently organizing for it with renewed energy.
The ADA established crucial protections for many people with disabilities, but always provided the most protection for those with time and money, especially the means to hire a lawyer. Accommodations in schools and workplaces, accessibility in businesses and on public transportation, and the overall right to exist in public spaces has increased exponentially since the ADA was passed, but it is still spotty and unequal across the United States and often dependent on your disability and access to wealth.
The frequent necessity of hiring a lawyer to access ADA protections has restricted many benefits of the law to the most privileged disabled people from the very beginning.
The ADA was never supposed to be the end. As Justin Dart, Jr., considered by some to be a father of the ADA, said when it was passed: “ADA is only the beginning. It is not a solution. Rather, it is an essential foundation on which solutions will be constructed.”
The ADA mirrored the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in many ways and was a win for disability rights activists because it promised basic protections against discrimination that didn’t exist before. But just as the Civil Rights Act fails to adequately protect Black Americans and other people of color from things like racial bias, voting restrictions, violence at the hands of law enforcement, or wage and wealth gaps established through decades of government-backed plunder, the ADA also falls short.
This is why I recently co-founded an organization called New Disabled South. Our mission is to fight for liberation, justice, and fundamental rights for all disabled people in the South—and in doing so, all disabled people across the country.
It’s a big fight, because disabled people in the South are under attack—and the ADA isn’t enough to protect us. So we are fighting to expose the depth of the problems and for brand new legislative solutions. We are fighting against impossible voting barriers, like the restriction of access to absentee ballots and the criminalization of assisting disabled voters.
Our main struggle and campaign is to pass five disabled voting bills of rights over the next five years in state legislatures across the South.
These disabled voting bills of rights will protect disabled voters’ legal right to vote. We need these protections because without them we simply can’t access the polls in the ways voters should be able to easily access the polls. Given our physical restrictions, that means we need a low administrative burden right to vote by mail, to accessible polling locations, to get assistance with our ballots, and to drive-through voting—all methods of voting under attack across the South.
We have also seen extreme state violence against disabled people across the South, particularly over the past decade with high-profile cases like Ethan Saylor, Sandra Bland, Tanisha Anderson, and the fatal shooting of Magdiel Sanchez.
Those tragedies unfortunately aren’t exceptions. Nearly half of people killed by police in the United States have a disability—and these are frequently disabled people of color. Meanwhile, 55% of Black disabled men have been arrested at least once by the time they are 28, and 40% of the current prison population is disabled. Police, prisons and courts are a disability justice issue because they are hurting disabled people.
That’s why at New Disabled South we are also fighting to end such criminalization with targeted campaigns and grassroots organizing to educate disabled people around the harms of policing and to mobilize our communities to dismantle these systems. The ADA doesn’t address the dire need for systemic changes in how we are treated by cops, courts, jails, or prisons.
Our people, across every single issue you care about, need you to care about disability—because at the margins of every issue you care about you will find us.
Poverty in the disabled community, especially across the South, hasn’t been solved by the ADA. Despite supposed equal access to jobs and housing—our people are living in poverty at twice the rate of non-disabled people. And we are seeing disabled people forced out of communities and into nursing homes, at all ages. A staggering 655,000 people are on state waiting lists to receive Medicaid waivers to receive care in their homes, and parents with disabled children are often separated from their kids or forced to live in poverty because they themselves have to stay home and provide critical care. We are fighting across every single one of our states to end this inhumane backlog, investing nearly $100,000 in ad campaigns calling on state leaders to fund waiver slots. We won’t stop until every single Southern disabled person waiting to come home is home.
Everything progressives fight for is bound up in disability. Racism, environmental injustice, climate change, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, capitalism, colonialism, xenophobia—all of these are disabling forces. Our people, across every single issue you care about, need you to care about disability—because at the margins of every issue you care about you will find us.
The ADA simply doesn’t account for our multi-issue lives. We need you to be on our side.
It’s time for our political and cultural leaders to do better for disabled people. Let’s stop racist police and courts and prisons from killing Black disabled people, let’s fight for our right to vote, and let’s ensure our people come home and can afford our bills. Let’s allow all disabled people to live and thrive.
The time is now to make the lives of all disabled people better. If you’re celebrating the ADA this month, transform your celebration into action for a better future for disabled people. The ADA isn’t enough, it never was, and we need more.
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