Should Disabled Workers Be Paid Less Than Minimum Wage?

The minimum wage might have been bumped up to $7.25 an hour in 2009, but that number means little to the over 300 workers with mental disabilities working at state-run homes for the people with disabilities in Iowa. That's because they were making, on average, $0.60 per hour for their work. One employee was even making an average of a mere $0.11 per hour, a sweatshop-level wage in any country. Yet paying employees with mental disabilities piddling wages is legal in Iowa and the rest of the country. Should it be acceptable for companies and government to pay workers pennies an hour because of a mental disability?

The law under which Woodward and Glenwood, the two homes that are being looked at for providing very low wages, were able to pay so little is a controversial law meant to provide job opportunities for people with mental disabilities. The idea is that employers will have an incentive to hire people who might not be able to perform tasks at the same level as non-disabled employees because they can pay them less. However, this law has always been controversial among disability rights and labor rights advocates, and has been increasingly questioned since a Texas-based Turkey company was found to be exploiting and trafficking disabled workers.

Proponents of the law, however, claim employers wouldn't hire people with disabilities if they had to pay them the minimum wage. They view a paycheck as providing important self-esteem for people with disabilities, even those who are not be paid enough to live off of. Since some of the employees who were working at the home were also residents in group housing, the argument is that their cost of living is low enough that they don't rely on paychecks like others.

But what's fair? I'm going to go out on what I see as a very short limb and say that $0.11 an hour for the sorts of work these people were doing -- janitorial services, food service, laundry, and delivery services -- is exploitative. And pennies on the dollar is not any better. This law makes a statement that the work of disabled people is valued far below that of non-disabled people. The whole reason behind having laws like the minimum wage law is to protect workers who are vulnerable to slavery and exploitation. When you exclude vulnerable groups from that law, like people with disabilities, then you give corrupt employers space to enslave and exploit people.

Let's find a way to both provide employment opportunities for people with mental disabilities and protect them from wage theft and exploitation. Because everyone deserves a fair wage for fair work.

Photo credit: Honza Sokup