I think for a lot of people it’s about having some place to go during the day that they don’t have to pay for. If someone is unable to work a regular minimum wage job but is able to do simple tasks it could be either be stay at home and do nothing everyday or having either the government or the family pay for care. This allows a company to provide the supervision and a place for safe social interaction. People in these programs get to feel like an actual member of society rather than just a burden on their family. They can have something to do all day and come home and talk about their day at work instead of what they watched on TV. It’s unfortunate that they can’t provide enough value to justify a company to pay minimum wage but at least this way they get to have some money to help their family with bills or spend on their hobbies.
That’s why you pay them minimum wage or more and get a kickback from the government, that ends up being cheaper for everyone in the long run and you’re not exploiting them.
exactly. the free market has shown it is not able to take care of society’s most vulnerable. instead, the government should be tasked with taking care of its people.
There are volunteer positions for anyone wanting to simply just do something through the day.
If EMPLOYERS want to have these people on staff, they should pay them. Period. We give people minimum wage regardless of their job. Whether a toilet scrubber, trash handler, or floor mopping person, these are all jobs worthy of minimum wage.
If a job needs to be done and they need to hire someone to do it, that person should get minimum wage, regardless of who it is, what their situation is, etc.
If companies really want relief about this stuff, maybe they should lobby for the wages that they spend on differently capable persons to be offset with a tax break or something… Let that person go home with a full paycheque. Twisting this into doing everyone a favor for giving those people something to do, is the same mentality that was used to enslave entire races. People literally thought that some races didn’t have the intellectual capability to handle their business, so by enslaving them, we were doing them a favor. The justification was always insane, they thought that by providing the bare minimum of food for their table and a space to sleep, they were entitled to own that person. It’s fucked up.
Now we’re trying to justify paying them less or not at all because they operate different to NT people?
… I’m sorry, that’s a twisted and toxic perspective.
volunteer positions
So instead of getting paid below minimum wage you’d rather they don’t get paid at all?
Volunteer positions also often cannot provide the often increased need for supervision and guidance, especially for new or atypical tasks.
To be honest, I don’t know every individual business, but the vast majority of businesses that I know that hire people with mental (or sometimes physical) impairment do so as part of a social goal to give back to society. We have a shop around my hometown where they fix bicycles. Takes longer and you often have a neurotypical supervisor that jumps in if needed, but at the end it’s a great way to give these people a place in society and a small pay that they can see as their contribution to their family (or their own lives).
Oh, I don’t think they should take the volunteer positions, but if companies want unpaid labor, that’s their option… Not “hey Joe, you know how Pat is kinda, special? Do you think we could just… You know, cut their pay? Do you think that they would notice?”
Because that’s what I get from vibe of the article.
Volunteer should be a choice that someone can make. To choose to be there without pay to do something because you want to help out. Generally for things like a outreach programme or something… I volunteered a few hours of my time and a few gallons of gas to drive out there, to help clean up a neighborhood that was overgrown and had drug paraphernalia (like needles) and other debris around. I’ve also volunteered to do communications for charity events, and I’ve done a huge amount of volunteering as a first-aider, back in the day. It’s good to volunteer your time every once and a while.
But if someone is showing up for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, and they’re considered a “volunteer”, shit is fucked up.
I used to work rather extensively with a local Goodwill (like) company, at my previous job. They had a deli/kitchen kind of storefront on one of their sites and they employed several people with various challenges over the years, and I’m certain each and every one was a paid employee. I ate there often to show my support.
And that’s what it should be. There was always someone around (full time permanent employee) who was able to supervise and handle anything that might unexpectedly happen.
I worked with in a garage where they employed someone to valet the hire fleet. He was incredibly slow but did a decent job. Half his wage was paid for by a government agency, he was originally on an unpaid work experience thing and the agency asked the boss if he would hire him. He said no so they offered to partially fund his wages so boss said ok. This is similar(better imho) but there are people you simply would not employ (unless you are doing it for charitable reasons) because you can get someone else for the same money.
I agree. Some positions simply cannot be filled by people who are incapable of doing the work. It’s the same way you wouldn’t hire a blind person to drive a truck.
There’s nothing wrong with giving the legally blind some kind of employment that they are capable of completing, it just limits their options. I would equiviquate it to hiring joe the garbage-man to do vector calculations for spacetravel. You would want someone who is educated and trained in that specific field to do the work; and companies would pay for that privlidge. Fact is, not everyone can do every job.
Giving someone who is differently abled, a job, is good for everyone. It cuts down on the requirement for the government to foot the bill of their care, as otherwise those that need the assistance would be on disability payments. By holding a job, they can contribute to society, and earn more than they would on assistance, while the government is likely paying aproximately the same amount they would for disability payments, just to the employer, who suppliements that with additional contribution. It shifts the social responsibility of the thing slightly, and allows those who are unable to do more, to do what they can and enhance the society in which we live - which is a sense of accomplishment that we all crave.
Either way, everyone working a job should be paid for what they do, and that wage should be enough to have their basic needs met… a liveable wage. Regardless of all other factors.
Which isn’t to desparage those who cannot work, they should be able to live as well, irrespective of why they cannot work. Welfare and/or disability support should provide for those who are incapable. Which is why I support UBI. everyone should have their needs met. Period. Food, Shelter, clothes on their back. The trick with UBI is how to make it so that people still want to work “minimum wage” type jobs. If UBI is covering their needs then those without any motivation or desire to better themselves will, in theory, just loaf around all day. “minimum wage” type jobs should be UBI (all basic needs met), alongside a relatively small payment to bump them above the basics to be able to afford luxuries like a premium mobile phone or premium mobile phone plan with data and unlimited texting or something. Internet at home that’s faster than the most basic connection they can otherwise get, nicer stuff… you know… like a car.
The main issue with UBI, IMO, is that many feel weird about giving one organization (namely the government) that much control over their flow of money; and giving it on such a scale that everyone is reliant, in some way, shape, or form, on government payments to live. Honestly, I understand that, but I disagree that it should be a problem. If the system is designed correctly, then that won’t be a problem. The main argument I have, for UBI, is that it would dramatically simplify unemployment/welfare. Everything goes through and is automatically approved as long as you’re a citizen. Whether you’re getting some form of unemployment insurance or welfare or something else (like disability), you’re getting the same, or similar amounts regardless as UBI. Hell, most of the current infrastructure wouldn’t even need to change that much, businesses would just show that John is employed here and we’re covering more than their UBI, and the company would handle it from there, as soon as John gets released from their employment, the company already has to register with the government that John no longer works here, that would trigger an action where John would need to update his UBI records, and as soon as John does, voila, UBI money going directly into John’s account. Reason for unemployment? doesn’t matter. John gets UBI. As soon as John finds a new job, the job registers that John works here as of X date, and the company is now covering John’s UBI payments through his wages.
Argh, sorry for the rant, but it’s something that I’m pretty passionate about.
I really doubt volunteering fills the same need. They want to feel like they’re contributing something back to the family that is taking care of them. They want (and deserve) a paycheck for their work.
And the problem is companies don’t want them compared to a neurotypical employee for the same wages.
So? Companies would rather not pay anyone anything. They can stuff it and pay everyone fairly.
Then these people simply won’t get hired…
Volunteering is generally very limited when it comes to for-profit organizations. aside from “work experience” and some “intern” type jobs, taking work for no pay is rare outside of not-for-profit orgs.
Often, Volunteers are on a very temporary basis, usually a day or two, very infrequently. Even interns or work experience programs are time-limited, and an employer either needs to hire that person properly, or let them go when the time runs out.
AFAIK, you can’t be a permanent full-time volunteer. I mean, you can just show up and help out if you want, but it would only be of your own volition to do so; and I don’t think anyone in their right mind would stick around generating profit for someone else for a protracted period of time, just because they can.
Normalizing that, by not paying disabled workers is not the right move. I think we agree on that. At the same time, we can’t really eliminate volunteer jobs. I do a non-trivial amount of volunteering, and there’s a good number of things, like fundraisers, that would likely collapse or be very ineffectual if we did away with volunteering entirely… Fact is, nobody should be given volunteering as their only option for work; especially long-term.
they can’t provide enough value to justify a company to pay minimum wage
Bullshit. Showing up at all is worth more than $7.25/h. If you can’t afford to pay decent wages, you can’t afford to have employees.
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My firm works with at risk youth, we provide training and resources to assist them in pursuing a career in the trades.
We pay them $18/hr, the government gives us a subsidy of something like $8-12/hr depending on the situation.
The employee is still paid pretty much what their colleagues are. There are ways to handle this that don’t end up with mentally challenged people working for slave wages.
It’s unfortunate that they can’t provide enough value to justify a company to pay minimum wage
What’s unfortunate is when people don’t understand that everyone, even mentally disabled persons, deserves a living wage at minimum.
No one is paid based on the actual “value” they provide to a company. If that were the case, CEOs would be paid a fraction of what they’re currently paid, and the lowest paid workers would make multiple times more than what they currently make.
I agree but why would a company employ people with learning disabilities when they could employ people without learning disabilities and pay them the same amount. Think there is a bigger underlying issue. Governments should incentivize employing these people so it becomes a non issue.
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Indeed, it is so very important for someone to feel like they have a purpose and are important. My father suffered brain damage and is ineligible for work even though he wanted to trick the person assessing him. Being allowed to do a menial job (with the people assisting him in his kob getting subsidized and him getting barely any pay) with any pay at all, made him so proud he even has pictures framed of him working there around his house.
He has been unable to work now (even there) for quite a few years and has taken up drinking instead. I don’t really blame him either.
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Thanks usually I’m pretty good with catching the sarcasm but this time I wasn’t
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So move to Cuba.
Fortunately we have this thing called “Democracy” in the USA which means “if you don’t like something you can be involved in the process of changing it.”
If I recall correctly there was a big brouhaha in the late 1700s w/r/t “we should change how this country is run somewhat.”
Would you have advised Washington, Jefferson and Franklin to have moved elsewhere rather than stand up to King George?
Should Lincoln, Grant et al have left America instead of fighting against the Confederacy?
How about Martin Luther King? Alice Paul? Thomas Paine? Elizabeth Stanton? Susan B Anthony.
Sorry but no. The USA is not a democracy. It’s a republic. It’s in the pledge if you’re old enough to have said that in elementary school.
ah, so Americans can’t vote for change? and indeed doing so is bad?
Shameful. A topic that keeps coming up here in the UK. Our government, as well as being classist, racist, xenophobic, and transphobic, they’re also ableist as fuck.
I’m shocked this is from the UK not the US.
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It’s a problem in Germany as well.
Why this is even a “debate”
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I see you have a couple of straw-men responding to you, so I’ll try answer with a real world actual answer from my own lived experience.
I used to know a guy, who I’ll call Dave. Dave had some major developmental disabilities, like major major ones. At the time I first met him, my country had a law similar to this one being debated here, and Dave was employed for about half of minimum wage to push a broom around a carpentry workshop. It was the first and only time in his life that he’d ever earned a wage, and there was an unsaid understanding among the crew that Dave was doing would otherwise be a couple minutes work for them. Everyone loved him because he was so happy, and always wanting to help.
Dave was so proud of being part of the team, and he kept the place incredibly tidy, tidier than I’ve ever seen any other tradie’s workshop. (Also - it’s important context that over here we have good social safety nets, so Dave didn’t need the money to survive, he had government benefits and a full time carer).
Then the law was revoked - suddenly the guy owning the business had to choose between paying Dave or getting a full time qualified apprentice. So he did what he had to do.
There isn’t a happy ending to this story. Health and safety meant that you couldn’t have an unpaid non-worker running around a workshop, and Dave was never able to come back - even though he’d have been happy to stay unpaid just to be part of the team. And a couple years later, my work happened to take me to a small government -owned townhouse, which turned out to be Dave’s. His carer recognised me, but I didn’t recognise Dave. He was a sad empty shell of the person I once knew; he’d lost his purpose, his armchair literally had the cartoon-style outline of his body because he was there so often, and I was told he hadn’t left the house for more than six months, even for a walk around the block.
It’s possible to both protect disadvantaged workers from exploitation, while also giving inducements to businesses so that it’s worth hiring people who otherwise wouldn’t be hireable. We had that here! And when we lost it, Dave lost his purpose and the only part of his life that had ever given him meaning.
Because capitalism won.
Because people have egos.
“I make $15 an hour at my job, this (slur) can’t even (slur) and gets paid nearly as much as I make?!”
Yeah buddy, and you also deserve to make more.
The moment the monsters that want this get their way, I guarantee someone will try to manufacture more people with disabilities.
It’s probably why they put lead in everything back then.
It disabled the boomers from critical thinking
Oh wait. Don’t doctors and schools do that already?
Found the American suffering from lead poisoning
14© of FLSA will never be a simple conversation. It’s also often taken out of context. You can’t just hire someone and pay them subminimum wage for a regular job. I could rant for a long time about this, if anyone cares, feel free to ask
Personally i think the solution is government programs for people with disabilities where their wages are subsidized so that the government provides, for example $5 an hour, to the employer who provides a job for someone with a disability.
That way the employer benefits by saving a bit of money, and the employee benefits by having a higher chance to be hired, not being devalued by making less than minimum wage or their coworkers, and they make a decent wage (hopefully).
That’s generally how 14c facilities work though. They’re just not subsidized enough for livable wages.
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First of all, learning disability is inaccurate. People with learning disabilities aren’t in 14c facilities.
People in 14c facilities are, typically (and not always, which is where ethical issues get really murky) people who cannot hold a “regular” job. For example, a typical example might be a person with Down syndrome with behavioral concerns. They may not have the physical stamina to have a job at a supermarket collecting carts. They may not respect social boundaries enough to work with customers (the Ds stereotype is someone who hugs strangers, for example).
So, this person we’re talking about has two choices. They either chill all day with staff doing activities or they go to a 14c facility where they get paid at a piece rate. That means if they assemble a widget, they may make a dollar. But if they decide they want to shoot the shit with people and not work, they may assemble one widget an hour and just chat for the rest of their time. In other words, they make $1 per hour. But there’s still consent on that individual’s part to be in that facility, as opposed to sitting home with staff and doing puzzles.
Of course, you might say there’s a better option than sitting at home doing puzzles with staff everyday, but then we’re talking about much more expensive services for that individual.
Edit: there are tax credits like you describe, by the way. But that’s in regular employment, not 14c facilities.
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We already had someone try that here in South Carolina, and it ended up pretty much how you’d expect for South Carolina. https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/551409-judge-rules-south-carolina-restaurant-manager-owes-enslaved/
Holy shit, that restaurant owner is beyond evil 100 per week for $0 pay, how can you not even feel bad for doing that?
Welcome to the mind of slaves owners
Does this not already exist in the states?
I had a retarded uncle, not a slur, just something that happened before they were aware of the second baby Rh pheonemona. And they paid him like $3 an hour to make fishing lures. I think somehow it’s a program that helps pay for services and stuff that supported him. But it always seemed really bad to me, although I lived on the other side of the country so no idea what the “services” entailed.
The alternative is that they will never have any job at all, and they might not be happy living on handouts.
The alternative is they get paid just as much as everyone else, receive some extra cash from the government because being disabled can carry big hidden costs most people don’t realize.
The insensitive for the business is a tax break so the disabled worker does cost them less overall, they NEED this extra bit of what otherwise would be tax money to make reasonable changes to integrate the peoples special needs. After which its easier to hire more disabled people meaning more tax breaks.
Gonna take a personal stance that if 80% of your workers are officially disabled you shouldn’t need to pay tax at all. Helping these people is enough contributing to society to be ethical.
This isn’t a perfect system but its similar to how many countries do it and its miles better then forcing them into wageslavery.
Paying the disabled worker less is a complete upside down work because they have to work so much harder to get the same result. Remember your wage isn’t just a reflection of your output, otherwise it wouldn’t be an hourly rate. Its a reflection of the time and energy your body is putting into it every day.
If there could be a reasonable debate on this, we could argue: A) Even with accomodations, some people are going to be so unproductive that companies cannot justify hiring them at minimum wage -> B) Therefore, the government could subsidize their salary so that they have the option to contribute and earn their own salary.
Unfortunately, due to the pervasive interests of business, implementations of these solutions tend to result in companies suckling out of the teat of the state, underreporting on the actual productivity of their employees, and often putting them under the orders of managers who patronise them and barely see them as humans, with the subsequent issues that this provokes on one’s daily life.
And this is even without getting into the terrain of people who do have the capacity to be productive, but society doesn’t care about enabling that possibility. Think of people with reduced mobility who are perfectly capable of working in an office, but HR will immediately discard their application without bothering to study if they could be a good fit for the company; or autistic people, who require different sensory and social accomodations (neurotypical have sensory and social accomodation requirements too, but since they’re the norm, this tends to be ignored), and will be immediately assumed to be problematic even when they could be more productive than their allistic counter-parts.
I don’t mean to be defeatist, however. It is not impossible to achieve a proper integration of diversity.
Specialisterne helped Casa Batlló, a tourism-oriented cultural space in Barcelona, to employ and integrate 50 people on the spectrum, and everything has kept working reasonably well over there since then. This is notable because it is a common conception in business that you can’t or shouldn’t employ an autistic person to attend the public, but folks over there are literally getting paid to infodump tourists.
Unfortunately, I don’t know how it’d be possible to systemize the good work Specialisterne and other well educated and well intentioned groups are doing, without attracting nefarious actors that just want to get public funds even if they do a shit job.
At that point might as well nationalize the business, because the government is paying their employees anyway.
Capitalists: we don’t need welfare, charities can take care of those in need.
Also capitalists: it’s not my fault my employees are homeless, they should have made better choices.
We already know what unchecked capitalism looks like, it’s company stores and families buried under endless debt. This leads to things like the great hunger in Ireland where the island is literally exporting 10x the food it’s citizens need to survive while they starve in the streets.
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I don’t think it would be a problem to do it, but I do think it’s a problem that profitable private businesses are subsidized by welfare budgets and food banks.
Alternate alternate headline. Are disabled people, people?
Such individuals include student-learners (vocational education students), as well as full-time students employed in retail or service establishments, agriculture, or institutions of higher education. Also included are individuals whose earning or productive capacities are impaired by a physical or mental disability, including those related to age or injury, for the work to be performed.
This is such a weird group of exemptions. Full time students, presumably while paying tuition and housing themselves and completing 20 hours of coursework per week; and specifically in exactly the types of part time or seasonal jobs full-time students could take? What is the rationale? I know this happened to me in college–the university itself paid less than minimum wage for virtually any jobs done by students.
It seems to me you have the choice of paying high taxes and socializing everything; paying EVERY worker a living wage with room to cover a dependent or two and having a functioning capitalism; or earning enough for yourself to fly to Mars and avoid the guillotine while the world crumbles in despair. Why do so many choose space?
If minimum wage was a wage that a single income earners could support an entire household on, as it was original intended still, I might get this argument. With minimum wage being an unlivable joke, paying less is essentially slavery and textbook exploitative.
