Here’s some good news about the plight of the lowest paid workers with disabilities. The Biden Administration’s Department of Labor issued a proposed regulation that would phase out 14(c) certificates and give 14(c) employers three years to increase wages to the federal minimum.
Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) authorizes employers to pay subminimum wages to workers with disabilities that impair their productivity for the work they perform. Only employers who hold a 14(c) certificate may pay people with disabilities subminimum wages.
Enacted in 1938, this exception to the federal minimum wage law was established to help promote the employment of people with disabilities.
Now outdated, many states are outlawing the use of 14(c), including Alaska, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, Colorado, California, Delaware, Tennessee, South Carolina and Rhode Island. In-state employers in these states are required to pay workers with disabilities at least the minimum wage.
Over a year ago, the U.S. Department of Labor announced a major review of the 14(c) exemption provided by the Fair Labor Standards Act. Meetings were held with stakeholder groups including 14(c) employers, people with disabilities, their family members, and disability rights activists including United Spinal Association and the National Federation of the Blind. Both these membership organizations have opposed section 14(c) for years.
When President Roosevelt signed the FLSA of 1938, it was a landmark law that established minimum wage, overtime pay, and child labor protections, but excluded several groups of workers. When it was first passed, agricultural workers, domestic workers, and others, many from marginalized communities, including Black and immigrant workers, were not covered by its protections. Political compromises were made to gain support from Southern Democrats, who wanted to maintain practices that exploited labor, especially minority labor. Moreover, some of these workers received housing and/or meals which was considered a form of non-monetary compensation.
In 1966, Congress amended the law to include agricultural and restaurant workers and in 1974 domestic workers were included, as well. Unfortunately, however, in 2024, workers with disabilities were the only group still allowed to be paid less than $7.25 an hour, the federal minimum wage.
“Sheltered workshops” were established in response to the FLSA exemption for people with disabilities. Employers and the government believed that: 1) people with disabilities could fairly be paid less because their disabilities made them less productive, 2) that they would not be hired because of their disabilities, so it was acceptable to pay them less, and 3) that sheltered workshops were really more like adult daycare than employment, so it was okay to pay less. These became convenient rationales for denying minimum wage to workers with disabilities.
Curtis Decker, Executive Director of the National Disability Rights Network, called section 14(c) “…an unsettling example of how good intentions can lead to terrible outcomes.” In an introductory letter to the 2011 National Disability Rights Network Study on Sheltered Workshops and the Segregation and Exploitation of Disabled Workers, Decker asserted that “people with disabilities can and do work in all areas of the American workforce. They thrive when they fully participate in their communities, and in turn, the nation thrives.” The only reason “…sheltered workshops and the sub-minimum wage still exist today [is] because of self-interested employers and systematic neglect by federal agencies, buttressed by outdated stereotypes of people with disabilities and the low expectations held by the general public, lawmakers and…the disabilities rights community.”
It is likely that the momentum to pay everyone at least the minimum wage will be sustained into the Trump Administration. The disability rights community has been pushing hard on the issue, attitudes and stereotypes about workers with disabilities are changing, and have certainly changed since 1938, and, let’s admit it, even $7.25 an hour is unconscionably low wage.
Opinions expressed are solely those of the writer(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Able News at The Viscardi Center and/or The Viscardi Center.