An employee in a sheltered workshop takes a moment of rest while repackaging plastic sprayers to chat with her mother. (Tammy Ljungblad/The Kansas City Star/TNS)
Dozens of disability advocacy groups are urging the Biden administration to end a decades-old program that allows employers to pay workers with disabilities less than the minimum wage.
in a letter This week top officials at the U.S. Department of Labor, the American Association of People with Disabilities, the Autism Society, the National Disability Rights Network and more than 20 other organizations said the agency should eliminate what is known as the Section 14(c) program.
Since the 1930s, federal law has allowed employers to obtain special certificates from the Department of Labor that allow them to pay workers with disabilities less than the minimum wage. But the program has largely fallen out of favor in recent times and efforts have shifted toward supporting people with disabilities in competitive integrated employment.
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“The practice of paying disabled Americans subminimum wages is unjust, unjust and only further discriminates against our community that already faces so many challenges in our daily lives,” said Maria Town, president and CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities. “People with disabilities deserve to receive a fair wage regardless of their work environment. This practice has continued for 90 years. “It’s time for this to end.”
In their letter, the advocacy groups argue that Section 14(c) is inconsistent with federal civil rights laws intended to promote community inclusion of people with disabilities. The program is degrading to people with disabilities, ripe for exploitation, diverts resources from other disability employment efforts and does not open doors to other opportunities, the groups say.
Fifteen states have already banned subminimum wage employment, and a Government Accountability Office report earlier this year found that the number of people working in those jobs fell from 296,000 to 122,000 between 2010 and 2019. That number has continued to decline since then.
“Eliminating Section 14(c) simply means giving everyone access to the federal minimum wage and ending the discriminatory practice of singling out people with disabilities as not able/competent to fully participate in the labor market,” the letter states.
Advocacy groups recognize that ending the subminimum wage program would require “time and resources to ensure that people with disabilities have the opportunity to successfully transition to their next step, whether toward competitive integrated employment or toward some other support or pre-employment service. .”
However, advocates of the subminimum wage program say ending it would simply limit opportunities for people with more significant disabilities for whom competitive integrated employment may not be desirable or attainable.
The Department of Labor has been holding a series of engagement sessions to solicit feedback from the disability community amid a “comprehensive review” of the Section 14(c) program.
Labor Department officials said Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su is reviewing the advocates’ letter.
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