This July, the House of
Representatives is planning to vote on a bill to raise the minimum wage to $15
by 2024. Most of the media coverage has highlighted the groundswell of
progressive support behind the increase — a $15 minimum wage was considered a
pipe dream only a few years ago, and now the bill is co-sponsored by a majority
of congressional Democrats. But an equally monumental — and largely overlooked
— story behind the bill is what it would mean for the 1 in
5 Americans living with a disability.
A loophole in the current
minimum wage law allows employers to pay workers with disabilities
a subminimum wage that’s even lower than the federal limit of $7.25 —
in some cases, paying people as little as pennies per hour. In recent
years, an estimated 420,000 individuals with disabilities have been
paid an average of just $2.15 per hour.
The new bill would sunset the
separate subminimum wage, immediately setting it at $4.25 and then gradually
increasing it every year for the next six years until it is even with the
minimum wage.
Disability advocates have been
pushing for this type of legislation for years. The subminimum wage was
initially introduced in 1938 to encourage employers to hire veterans with
disabilities — and has barely budged in the nearly 80 years since. Now, the
Depression-era policy does far more harm than good. Partly as a result of these
extremely low wages, workers with disabilities are nearly twice as
likely to be economically insecure as workers without disabilities.
While some advocates argue
that the subminimum wage offers workers a foot in the door of the labor market
— paving the way to skill development, training, and an upward career
trajectory — research shows that it exposes workers with disabilities to
exploitation and seclusion. In 2016, phasing out the separate subminimum wage
was a key recommendation of the Department of Labor’s advisory
committee on employment among individuals with disabilities.
The Depression-era policy does
far more harm than good.
In its current form, the
subminimum wage pigeon-holes workers into dead-end jobs — most
often at sheltered workshops, where workers with disabilities are
kept separate from other workers. It’s stigmatizing, sending the message that
disabled individuals’ work is not as valuable as other individuals’ work. And
it’s discriminatory, robbing workers with disabilities of the basic labor
protections afforded to workers without disabilities and leaving them
vulnerable to mistreatment and abuse. Senator Casey and others have introduced
the Transformation to Competitive Employment Act, which would include a
graduated phase out of these programs over six years and financial incentives
to support current programs to move to a model of integrated employment at
competitive wages. However, the Raise the Wage Act is notable for finally
treating these workers as a key part of the workforce from the outset.
Congressional Democrats’
embrace of one fair minimum wage taps into a growing — but so far, largely
frustrated — movement. President Obama attempted to partially rectify the law
by including workers with disabilities in his 2014 executive
order mandating a minimum wage of $10.10 for federal contractors, which
President Trump has threatened
to reverse. At least six states, New Hampshire, Alaska, Maryland,
Washington, Oregon, and Vermont have independently passed legislation to phase
out the subminimum wage for workers with disabilities. Other subminimum wages,
like the one that exists for tipped workers, have been able to make more
progress. Eight states ban the tipped minimum wage, and all national
minimum wage bills introduced since 2012 have included provisions to
partially or fully phase it out.
For the 40
million workers who struggle to make ends meet on low wages, the Raise
the Wage Act is an historic step towards ensuring a livable wage for all. This
call is especially significant for the millions of workers with disabilities
who — after 80 years of being left without a voice in federal legislation — are
finally able to join the chorus, demanding the fair shot at fair pay that all
workers deserve.
Editor’s note: This piece was
originally published on May 18, 2017. It has since been updated
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