Why have we created a system where the minimum wage isn’t the standard for all disabled workers
By Jon Loeppky
Freelance Disabled Journalist
When we think of how oppression operates in a legal sense, we may look to institutional imagery, such as the Supreme Court or the suppression of protests, but when it comes to income and employment inequality for disabled people, it’s an excel spreadsheet that we see.
The document in question includes a list of organizations and businesses that have or intend to have a section 14(c) certificate. This certificate, if approved, means these employers — some of them positioning themselves as inclusive workplaces — can pay certain disabled people, often those with intellectual disabilities, below minimum wage.
What began as a provision of President Roosevelt’s 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, which was meant to improve employment for disabled people — employment was seen then, same as now, as a key part of someone’s American-ness — came at a time when institutionalization was the only path for a lot of marginalized folks. But it has apparently morphed into something else entirely: a business-branded excuse to dehumanize disabled workers in yet another way.
Exploitation under capitalism isn’t necessarily surprising, but some of the employers who opt in to the program and choose to pay disabled people substandard wages are less obvious: For example, the government of South Carolina, and at least seven chapters of one of the largest nonprofits dedicated to intellectually and developmentally disabled people, The Arc, are featured on the list.
READ ENTIRE ARTICLE AT TEEN VOGUE
