Disability advocates are hopeful that President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 pandemic “rescue plan” will, finally, end the discriminatory practice of paying lower wages to workers with disabilities.
There is a provision in the labor law, dating back to the 1930s, that allows employers to pay employees with disabilities less than the minimum wage – sometimes penny on the dollar. Eliminating this policy is in the President’s relief plan, being introduced in Congress this week.
Advocates are nervous that this discriminatory loophole, known as the ‘carveout,’ won’t be tackled at all as both Republicans and Democrats are expressing shock and awe over the bill’s $1.9 trillion price tag.
Jaipreet Virdi, historian of medicine, technology and disability at the University of Delaware said, “If we’re going to make any advancement in civil rights for disabled people, abolishing the sub-minimum wage would be a tremendous step.”
He continued, “It would eliminate the notion of disabled people being less valuable or less productive than their able-bodied counterparts—it would mean companies could no longer legally exploit their disabled workers and allow disabled people to achieve their full potential.”
President Biden’s relief plan not only asks for the elimination of the below minimum wage for workers wth disabilities, but also raising the federal minimum wage to $15 for all workers.
Established under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, Section 14(c) was originally introduced as a way to allow “substandard workers” — the term Labor Secretary Frances Perkins used to describe workers with disabilities who couldn’t achieve the same productivity goals as their able-bodied colleagues — to develop skills needed to gain full-time employment.
Over the decades, protections within Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act were diminished significantly.
Chris Danielson, director of public relations for the National Federation of the Blind stated, “At the time, this was felt to be a very progressive way of getting people with disabilities into the workforce, and although it allowed the payment of lessons and subminimum wage, there used to be a floor — they couldn’t pay below a certain amount.” He added, “Then, oddly enough, over the years, the floor got dropped. There’s literally no lower limit to what they can pay below the minimum wage.”
Companies that use the “carveout” have justified the practice of paying disabled workers less than the minimum wage, saying that a low-paying job is better than no job at all.
