by, Renee Wood

For a long time, I have been thinking about this whole sub-minimum wage issue. Some of you might agree with me, most of you will not. I tend to say things the way they are because I want to protect the rights of the majority, while still ensuring that the minority gets what they need to live as happy and productive as possible.

Let’s be real, if this sub-minimum wage clause had been used as intended, we would not be having an issue with it now. The fact is, for many years, those who could work for a competitive wage, and had a disability, were plugged into these sub-minimum wage jobs. Why? 1) these competitive workers picked up the slack of those who really could not work competitively (benefitting the employer, or organization), 2) it was easier to keep them in the sub-minimum wage positions, than fight societal discrimination against workers with disabilities and 3) parents felt better that their adult child could keep their measly SSI check when they could be making three or four times more in a competitive job. It got them out of the house, kept them safe and ensured they kept their benefits.  In other words, it was easier for the family, and quite frankly benefited the system, more than it did the few people rightfully under sub-minimum wage (I don’t know about the word “rightfully”, but for those whom it was intended).

Then you have those that the law was created to benefit. Those who their combined physical and intellectual disabilities were so limiting that there was just no job, not even a portion of a job that could accommodate their abilities. Some people are just too disabled to be employed – and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. That is why we have disability benefits – those benefits were intended for people who were too disabled to work. How disability benefits got associated with any type of disability, rather than the ability to do some form of competitive employment, is a topic for another blog.

People who truly cannot work competitively, not only deserve, but need something productive to fill their time. They also need to be recognized for their efforts. Everyone needs some kind of compensation for what they do. I just don’t know if sub-minimum wage was the correct way to handle that.  I pondered the idea of some kind of a weekly stipend that is not based on the amount of work put out, but that the individual showed up and was active in what they could do. I am not sure if a stipend is the answer either, but just something to recognize aid show thanks for that individual’s efforts.

As I say this, it’s kind of hard because I am not the type of person that thinks everyone deserves a blue ribbon. I think people have to accept that they are not always the best at everything, or maybe anything, but that doesn’t make them any less of a person. If one is too disabled to work, then they need to accept that they’re too disabled to work. However, you have this small gray area of people with cognitive disabilities who understand the concept of work and making money, but their significant physical disability combined with a cognitive disability, a competitive job is just not a reality for them.  However, they do need to feel like they can grab that lunch pail and go off to work. I get that, but there has to be another way to assimilate that without lying to them. Fact is, most of them are not really working (well they are “working ” in the sense that they are expending energy, but they don’t have a meaningful job), they are just going to a building with other people with disabilities and they all are looked after in a congregate setting – that is not “competitive” work – that is “disabled-adult-sitting”.

If adult Day-habs only accepted people who truly could not work, this might be an answer. However, here again, the system is being taken advantage of for convenience. People who can work competitively, but are hard to find jobs for, so the system says, “Let’s place Mary in a day hab for socialization and get her out of her parent’s house for a while, while we seek employment for her. Ten years later Mary’s still “socializing” in that same day-hab. And parents who don’t want their adult child exposed to the rigors of community, talk the system into allowing them to place their adult child in day-hab.  This means one has the same problem as they did with sub-minimum wage. That is why I call it a dilemma. Upper level professionals, have really taken the time to think it out, in order to accommodate people when they are not able to work. Then because of parental/guardian and outside pressures, people with disabilities get placed where they don’t need to be. That’s where you get injustice of people wrongly placed, and some rightly file suits for unfair pay. The system has to learn to “just say no” to those that a particular program was not designed to serve!

Let’s look outside of the DD system. How does the world accommodate those who have MS, head injuries after the age of 22, or people with spinal cord injuries – these people’s level of functioning isn’t any different than most people with the DD (Developmental Disability), yet they don’t depend on sub-minimum wages or day-habs to fill that gap, so what do they do?  Well, for one, we have the ADA, which mandates employers to have reasonable accommodations so that people with significant disabilities can work in the community in competitive jobs. Those who cannot work competitively, find hobbies, visit community venues such as; the library, Art Museum, continuing ED classes, video game spots and the multitude of other activities. Yes, it’s time consuming to figure out what one can do when they can’t work competitively. But people live full meaningful lives without work.

We can no longer justify paying sub-minimum wage because quite frankly, to people who are capable of working for a fair wage, and somehow find themselves caught in this trap, this is no less than slave labor. It’s time to take sub-minimum wage off the table, and find a more creative way for people unable to work competitively, to engage and meaningful activity.