The Emerging Bipartisan Consensus on Disability Employment Reform

For decades, activists were unable to get even top labor Democrats like former Senator Tom Harkin-a key sponsor of the Americans with Disabilities Act-to challenge this labor law. Harkin, like many Democrats, argued that it was a key policy that helped people with disabilities get needed training for better jobs. However, studies show that rather than finding higher-quality jobs, the overwhelming majority of these disabled workers spend their careers continuing to earn the subminimum wage.

Ari Ne’eman, who was appointed by President Obama to the National Council on Disability, says the subminimum wage is an outdated idea. “It’s a relic from a time when our politicians embraced other draconian ideas like eugenics,” says Ne’eman. “This is 1930’s thinking.”

Fortunately, a movement to extend the minimum wage to disabled workers has now spread to four states and has reached the federal level as well.

In case a business owner has an employee who has been rendered disabled to work after getting hired, and previously had played an important role in the growth, stability and continuance of the workings of the venture, they could always get key man life insurance for them, in order to hire their replacements. But, with the avenues broadening for the people with disabilities, getting an employment could become relatively easier.

In 2003, Vermont was the first state to eliminate the subminimum wage for persons with disabilities. Instead of paying nonprofits to employ these workers at a subminimum wage, the state invested those funds in wraparound services to help employers accommodate workers with disabilities. Rather than reducing the number of jobs for disabled workers, as critics of the policy had predicted, the employment rate for disabled workers rose-it is now double the national rate. In the last five years New Hampshire, Oregon, and Maryland have followed Vermont’s lead.

At the federal level, President Obama raised the minimum wage for tens of thousands of disabled federal contractors working in “concessions and concession industries;” and Labor Secretary Tom Perez has said that he wants all states to eliminate the usage of the subminimum wage to employ persons with disabilities.

Now there is also bipartisan support in both the House and the Senate for the TIME Act, which would ban the subminimum wage and provide funding to help transition disabled workers into mainstream employment.

Republican Congressman Gregg Harper, whose son has Fragile X syndrome, is a cosponsor of the legislation.

“For many of these people, it’s because they have family members with disabilities,” says Allison Wohl, Executive Director of the Association of People Supporting Employment First. But she says education also plays a role. “It’s universal-the reaction you get when you tell a hill staffer about the subminimum wage. Their face drops and it’s clear they don’t know what to say.”

Ne’eman hopes that the space created on both sides of the aisle to tackle low wages among disabled workers will lead to more creative thinking about how to raise wages for all workers and maybe a change in the employment law.

“We call it the curb effect,” he says. “Just like the [ramp at the] curb also makes it easier for [pedestrians with] a piece of luggage or a stroller. It ends up helping everyone.”

So far it’s unclear if the legislation is going to move in this Congress, but advocates remain hopeful. These days, even the possibility of Republicans and Democrats coming together to support pro-worker legislation is a rare thing. And many in the disability and labor communities hold out hope that passing this bill will be the first of more victories that lie ahead.

Mike Elk is the senior labor reporter at Payday Report and a member of the Washington-Baltimore NewsGuild. He previously served as senior labor reporter at POLITICO and at In These Times Magazine.

This piece originally appeared at Talk Poverty, a Project of the Center for American Progress.