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The Two Sides of the Employment First Coin

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Like a two-sided coin, the advocacy movement of Employment First has two core linked components. 
The first side is about ending obsolete practices – to phase out the needless segregation, less-than-minimum wages, and limited work tasks given to people with disabilities that make up much of sheltered work. 
The second side is to provide a system that supports, for every individual with a disability, a preference for quality employment services that are individualized. These are services that lead to well-matched jobs to enhance productivity, social success, and wages in community integrated businesses.
The success of both goals are interdependent. Moving people with disabilities out of sheltered workshops does not achieve the goal of a quality life if, after leaving, they remain excluded from typical community life, and instead sit home doing nothing, or be relegated to day programs focusing on non-vocational activities, or fail in poorly-matched and weakly-supported jobs.
And this is what might happen if states close workshops without investing in supported employment services. If states just maintain their supported employment for the small percentage of people receiving those services (about 22% nationally in the US), this will only perpetuate a serious bottleneck to employment people with significant disabilities have faced for the last 30 years. New services must be expanded or incubated to be able to serve more people. 
In addition, the level of quality of such services varies widely from place to place. Far too few agencies are well versed in marketing planning, job analysis and customization, or naturally sustainable job support strategies. A commitment to cutting edge service is a needed investment.
But, as well, ending a segregated approach with demonstrably poor outcomes must be part of the discussion of what needs to change. We cannot just ignore this half of the goal. Many of the large disability service agencies take the position that segregated facilities will just “fade away on their own” (to quote one such position paper) once better employment services are offered. But that is overly simplistic and has proven untrue over time. It will take proactive steps to end the current reliance on sheltered employment as a solution to work for people with disabilities.
If we consider both sides of Employment First, then we must acknowledge three basic conclusions. 
  1. First, change won’t occur until we freeze referrals to sheltered workshops, as is finally now being done in several states. Then there must be an active process to downsize the census over time.
  2. Two, offering quality employment services to many more people requires a large investment in capacity-building. This includes not only core basic training for the new staff that must be hired, but also in-service development to greatly increase the quality of career planning, job development, and job support. Many agencies still only provide rudimentary levels of these skill sets.
  3. And, finally, if established agencies are to successful change their missions and services, they must have access to technical assistance on organizational restructuring. Agency conversion can be complex and fraught with land mines, from family resistance, management restructuring, and the changing of agency mission and staff organization. Agencies taking this leap must be offered support, guidance and the resources necessary for them to succeed.

transition

Transition from School to Work: Time to Move Out from your Classroom Walls

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Having just returned from speaking at a Transition Conference in Illinois, I was encouraged by how much enthusiasm the transition teachers there brought to learning about community employment. They took furious notes during my opening. And my breakout session, which focused on job development tools, had to be moved to accommodate everyone. The comment I heard most was, “we have never heard this type of information before!”
This isn’t so much a reflection of my speaking skills as it is the huge gap in the training special educators have available in the practical application of career planning, marketing, and job development. It seems to me that most of these type of conferences are often too wrapped in very specialized approaches, such as running a school bakery, or some other such “transition model.” Educators, like those in adult services, are always seeking the latest in such program models.
Yet, for successful transition, basic wholesale change needs to occur that is much more than some new “model” to try in the building. Schools must expand beyond their classroom walls into their business communities. They need to build career development curricula that are flexible so that they can be customized for each student. They need to turn their focus to engage their local employers, not asking for favors, but as an investment in the future labor force of their community. Most transition programs are noticeably absent in business networking and marketing, despite the fact that they are preparing a significant portion of tomorrow’s workers. 
This absence critically hampers employment opportunities. Schools need to have active partnerships with their local business for career exploration, job site training, resume development, and soft skill training, not to mention job experience. Without marketing plans in place, employers have no idea how schools can function as resources to their business.
Most teachers have a good background in task analysis and training, but I find there is a tendency to over-rely on this approach to solve all work problems encountered. In the world of employment, training isn’t always the answer to hiring and job success. Accommodations, natural support, and individualized job matching can bring much greater results more immediately.
My takeaway from spending some time with transition staff is to acknowledge how much you care about your students and how hard you are working. But it is time for educators to bring in some employment advocates and trainers who can help you build real-world opportunities to keep your graduates from ever seeing the inside of sheltered workshop.
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Workshops: The Burden of Proof is On You

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Over the last year, I’ve been in front of numerous audiences to discuss the concept of Employment First and the need to phase out facility-based sheltered workshops. I don’t make the argument lightly. It is a wholesale change of focus for many. It uproots individuals from their comfort zone. It is threatening to agencies and parents. It requires funding and core policy shifts. 

Yet, I have no doubt it is the right thing to do. And not just because it seems right from a value point of view, which it does. The reasons are multiple, and added up they are compelling.
1. Research has unequivocally found that those who attend workshops, when matched to those who don’t, earn less, have more limited vocational experience, and ultimately take longer to find jobs and cost more to serve over time. 
2. Those who experience community employment and sheltered work choose community employment as their preference.
3. Segregation of people with disabilities has proven to make them more open to neglect, abuse, and exploitation.
But regardless, I find that most of those who refuse to make changes to a sheltered work system simply aren’t listening. They don’t want to examine evidence, because they see no need to change what they are comfortable doing. The threat of change, and the likely corresponding difficulties that go with any change, are too troublesome.
But the burden of proof should always rest on those who have put people in environments that deviate from the typical experiences of our communities. We really shouldn’t have to prove community is better. Before placing someone in a workshop (or institution, group home, day habilitation, etc.) that program should first show evidence their outcomes exceed what can be experienced by people with disabilities in a community setting with reasonable-costing support. It’s like prescribing medication. Do the gains outweigh the side effects? Before you take any drug that will have an impact on your health, you would want to know what all its effects will likely be.
The default setting should always be what is typically experienced by community members as it applies to the life of a person with a disability, with reasonable support as needed.
All disability support, programs and interventions are actually accommodations, from a wheelchair to supported employment to sheltered work. The level of deviation from typical life varies in scale with each, as do their outcomes. When a disability program deviates from typical experience, there must be a cost-benefit analysis. That is, weigh the benefits of the intervention against the costs, including price, difficulty, risk of stereotyping and discrimination, and the risk of reducing quality of life and life experience. 
For example, clearly a wheelchair has great benefits in increased mobility and corresponding independence. Compare this to its costs, which is not only its price, but also includes risk of discrimination and false stereotypes of lower intelligence, productivity, and more that people in wheelchairs have wrongly experienced. Despite the risks, most people with mobility needs use a wheelchair and confront the related issues.
But for workshops, the evidence clearly points to community employment as a better cost-benefit result. Maybe in the past, sheltered work showed a better outcome for individuals who would otherwise sit at home and do nothing; but that isn’t, nor should be, the situation today. Sheltered work is not today’s answer to disability unemployment. Disability facilities, the burden of proof lies with you. And there is no evidence there.
marketing and job development

Mixed Marketing: How Job Development Can Be Hindered by Typical Agency Communications

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Recruiting for an Intensive Behavioral Group Home
Having visited and consulted with many disability employment organizations over the years, I believe the single skill most in need of training is in the area of marketing and job development. A major component of job development is the communication that agencies do within their communities. Marketing is all about communication, and there are a number of areas that contribute to a solid marketing approach. But one key at the start is to ensure that the organization does not offer competing and confusing messages about the individuals they serve.
What do I mean by a competing message? First, consider the marketing message that employers should be receiving about potential workers with disabilities. It should focus on business success, capability, and productivity. People should be presented positively and as a benefit to any business that includes someone with a disability in its workforce.
There are at least several areas I have observed where competing messages can occur.

1. Staff Hiring Ads that Convey Negative Messages about People with Disabilities
I recently read an hiring ad of an agency that included the following: “Work with people with developmental disabilities. Must be able to handle aggressive behavior.” The recruitment ad pictured above labels the residents as “intensive” and “behavioral.”
Intensive? Behavioral? Aggressive? Anyone reading the ad would likely feel fear, not competence. This kind of public description should be banned by law.
2. Logos and Program Names Based on Disability, Hope, or Helping
Agency logos often symbolize disability, sometimes in subtle or not-so-subtle ways. I have seen wheelchairs, crutches, and even bandaids in the logos of disability agencies that provide employment services. This defines the labor force you represent to employers by their deficit, not their capabilities.
3. Charity Appeals
A lot of agency fundraising can link charity to pity. Walk-a-thons, golf charity days, and the like often include a communication of need related to the disability. A message goes something like this: “Without your help, this person’s life will be miserable.” Agencies that run thrift stores also use the theme that “Your donation = jobs for people with disabilities.” This has several issues. It equates employment with charity, and can imply the jobs relate only to within the stores themselves, an idea that could limit employers thinking about what types of jobs people with disabilities can do.
4. Misguided Awareness Campaigns
Many agencies or advocacy groups attempt a well-meaning effort to build awareness of a disability label by marketing campaigns or holding special events. But sometimes subtle fear or pity messages are included. Note the use of fear in this ad at left about Asperger Syndrome.
5. Workshop Marketing for Sub-contract work
Sheltered workshops rely on businesses providing sub-contract work to them, and often give them the message that the provider agency offers cheaper labor by the business sending the work out rather than hiring within. This actually competes directly against job placement marketing, and gives a message about a lower value for workers with disabilities.
There is a good deal more analysis we can explore that relates to principles of communication and marketing. It would require us to research disability stereotypes, and analyze communication approaches that have been researched and proven successful with business. We can’t cover that here, but if your agency is interested in this topic, join our online Job Development Web Course scheduled for October 2.
exploitation minimum wage

The Bad Wages Stew: The Sub-minimum Pay Exposé Includes at Least 8 Critical Issues We Need to Face

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Earlier this summer, the NBC’s news show, Rock Center, aired a critical examination of some Goodwill agencies paying workers with disabilities wages as low as 22 cents per hour. Some viewers responded with outrage; others defended the practice as necessary. Readers of this blog will know that I have presented several arguments as to why this practice is truly exploitive and must end. But the Goodwill scenario is particularly interesting because of its complexity. Let’s examine this recent media story more closely, as there are at least eight troubling issues being mixed together in this stew.
1. Extremely low wages for workers with disabilities.
The obvious one is the fact that many workers with disabilities earn next to nothing when sub-minimum wage is used. Why should we allow any employer, and particularly one charged with helping people with disabilities, to provide wages to them that are exempt from minimum wage? Goodwill offers some responses, and we will review these in turn below. But the basic issue is that the people most in need of income are the ones who are being severely shortchanged by the very agency supposedly helping them.
2. The false argument that without low wages, people wouldn’t be able to work at all.
Goodwill’s website notes the practice is a “tool” to help people get jobs “who otherwise would not have them.” On the Rock Center piece, Goodwill International Executive Director Jim Gibbons states that eliminating sub-minimum wages “would mean that many hard-working people would be out of their jobs.” This is only true if Goodwill abandoned those people if the sub-minimum wage was phased out. First, there is no research or other evidence to support people need sub-minimum wage to work. In fact, there is a lot of evidence to the contrary. Consider that at least 50 Goodwill affiliates do not elect to use sub-minimum wage, and many are quite successful at placing individuals with disabilities in minimum wage or better jobs. Beyond Goodwill, there are many examples of other agencies working with individuals with challenging disabilities and providing good job matches at good pay. With proper matching and support, people can be productive to merit minimum wage or better.
3. The wage disparity of non-profit management, their direct service staff, and the people they serve.
In 2011, the top five highest paid employees for Goodwill Industries of the Columbia Willamette (Oregon) made a combined total of $1,506,373 in salary and benefits. With this amount of money going to a few top staff, and at the same time the mission of the agency is stated as “to enhance the quality of life of the people we serve,” there is a severe mismatch of mission and results. A Watchdog.org analysis of the recent tax returns for 109 Goodwills that use the Special Wage Certificate found top executives were paid more than $53.7 million. Seventeen Goodwills reported executive compensation in excess of $1 million per year with 30 CEOs receiving more than $293,000 per year in total compensation. With excessive funding going to management salaries, it’s impossible to accept that the workers with disabilities (whom agencies exist to serve) should be subject to incredibly low wages, while doing ANY of the work that supports these executive salaries. This is the very definition of exploitation.
4. Excessive administration costs for serving people with disabilities.
Organizations that receive taxpayer funding to provide services should be held accountable for expenses and the outcomes produced. In this case, watchdog.org noted practices such as:
  • 13 organizations spent more than $100,000 in annual conference expenses.
  • One Goodwill tax return showed a CEO and his spouse were “entitled to first-class travel and access to a private club.” 
5. Misleading marketing that equates donations with jobs.
Many Goodwills use expensive marketing, including billboards, media ads, and more to promote donations, equating the value of those donations with producing jobs for people with disabilities. Yet it is impossible to determine what percentage of donations actually goes to direct vocational services, and what wage outcomes are produced as a result. Certainly high worker wages are not a general result. If Goodwill wants to make advertising claims that say a donation directly results in a job, they should produce the evidence nationally. I would bet that for every $100 spent, less than $1 is paid in wages to a worker with a disability. It would be interesting to see how far under a dollar it really would be. Also troubling is that the marketing of donations paired with employment can produce a underlying message of charity being need for workers with disabilities. This harms national efforts in supported employment core marketing to business of productivity, not charity.
6. The simplistic assumption that for people with disabilities, “it’s not the money, it’s the fulfillment.”
On camera, Goodwill’s Jim Gibbons said it’s not about “livelihood, it’s about fulfillment.” Of course being productive and working is fulfilling. People work for many reasons, and not just for pay. And for those who have been historically kept out of the workforce, any job regardless of pay might seem good. But even if people need to learn about the concept of being paid fairly for work, that doesn’t mean they should be taken advantage of. In fact, exploitation includes paying people less when they haven’t learned or even care yet about the value of their work. Teach them. That’s part of your job.
7. The use of sub-minimum wage to shortcut quality job matching and support.
Providing quality employment services involves individualized planning and support to help people work in jobs well-matched to their skills and interests. Some Goodwill affiliates, and many other agencies like them, have their services flow in the opposite direction. They offer limited job choices, based more on their internal needs than the job applicants. For instance, regardless of Albert’s skills, here is a job in a retail environment selling used items. And when Albert is slow hanging up clothes, and his performance is not equal to expectations, cut his pay to match productivity, even if it is 22 cents per hour. This is inadequate for vocational service at any funding level. What about more training, accommodations, or a better-matched job? I have discussed this issue previously: The best predictor of job success is not whether people can work at lower standards for lower wages; it is how well we customize employment and provide job supports to meet productivity demands. Using sub-minimum wage is, at best, lazy, and under scrutiny, exploitive.
8. The social and self-identity ramifications of workers earning pennies or a few dollars per hour.
Something I have yet to see mentioned in the discussion of this topic is the social price paid when workers receive paychecks of less than a few dollars per week. What can this do to self-esteem and the perceptions of others in his or her social circle? It’s true that some folks might not be affected by their low paycheck, or care what others think of that, but in our society, greater income can lead to many more choices about housing, recreation, free time, and other important facets of society, not to mention pride. If the response is “that doesn’t matter” or “he/she doesn’t care,” then one must question how well people with disabilities and their families have been supported in understanding and building what is possible – the quality life potential in social environments when one earns a decent living, regardless of disability. Maybe if they don’t care, it’s because they haven’t had the experience of disposable income or have been taught the value of money. Maybe those CEOs who are expert in the importance of salary should be responsible for providing this training…
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Each of these issues I’ve listed are deeply problematic. None are defensible either morally or as an evidence-based practice. And while state funding agencies and Congress debates, CEOs bring home huge salaries, benefits and perks, while workers with disabilities are kept in poverty, supposedly because 1) they have a “choice” and 2) without enforced poverty, they wouldn’t be working at all. Hogwash. We need to end all of these shameful practices and phase out sub-minimum wages.

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Sheltered Work Phasing Out in Rhode Island; Will Your State Host the Next Olmstead Investigation?

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This week, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) reached a landmark settlement based on the conclusion that the state of RI and the city of Providence failed to provide services to individuals with developmental disabilities in the most integrated setting, and were putting students in a school transition program at risk of unnecessary segregation in sheltered workshop and day program settings. Earlier this year, DOJ had investigated the state for violating the Olmstead decision of the Supreme Court through its day activity services system. They focused on Training Through Placement (TTP), a North Providence agency that had a sheltered workshop with transitioning students from the Birch Vocational Program and other schools.

Under the settlement, individuals in Birch and the TTP workshops will now receive supported employment and integrated day services sufficient to support 40 hours per week. It is expected people will work an average of 20 hours a week and receive competitive wages. According to the agreement, supported employment placements cannot be in sheltered workshops, group enclaves, mobile work crews, time-limited work experiences (internships), or other facility-based day programs.

The 29-page agreement is quite comprehensive, and follows on the heels of another DOJ intervention regarding sheltered workshops in Oregon (see The Good, Bad and Ugly). This now marks two separate states that within the last six months have been pushed, under the Olmstead decision, into finally taking action against their long-standing policies of primarily funding sheltered workshops for day services. Clearly, the issue of day service segregation is finally moving from “wait and see” to civil rights enforcement. 

Let’s look at the Rhode Island situation further. TTP workers with disabilities made an average $1.57 per hour, with one person making as little as 14 cents per hour. The investigation also found that Birch students were generally denied diplomas. Most were paid between 50 cents and $2 per hour, or were not paid at all, regardless of productivity. DOJ noted that the Birch program had been in existence for 25 years, and was a “direct pipeline” for cheap labor for TTP, which had contracts with local companies. The jobs were mostly typical of sheltered workshops, assembling jewelry, bagging, labeling and collating.

Effective March 31, 2014, the State will no longer provide placement or funding for any sheltered workshop or segregated day activity services at TTP. Further, last March, Rhode Island embraced an Employment First policy. Under the new policy, new participants in the state system that provides employment and other daytime services to 3,600 people with developmental disabilities will no longer be placed in sheltered workshops. The sheltered workshops should be completely phased out within the next two to three years.

The next question that should come to mind, if you are running or funding a program in a state chock full of workshops, is “Am I next?” Readers of this blog can examine the case presented for moving away from sheltered employment in other posts here. I also have had this discussion with some of the US DOJ attorneys. It’s time to expand the Employment First movement so that we away from sub-minimum wage, segregation, and limited work options, based on an obsolete model that can leave people open to exploitation. People with disabilities deserve better in every state. Employment First should not just be rhetoric. Take a leadership role now; there is no reason to wait for a lawsuit…

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The Good, Bad and Ugly: Trying to End Obsolete Sheltered Work in Oregon

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The state of Oregon, like it or not, will have a spotlight shining on it as it plans the future of employment services for people with intellectual/developmental disabilities (ID/DD). Like most states, Oregon spends the large majority of its employment service dollars ($30 million a year) for individuals with disabilities to be in sheltered workshops. In 2012, advocates filed a class action lawsuit challenging Oregon’s failure to provide supported employment services.

Last month, in a startling move, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it had joined the lawsuit, stating, “We are seeking to represent the interests of Oregonians currently working in sheltered workshops and those who are at risk of being placed in sheltered workshops upon their graduation.”

The complaint gave many examples of how people are currently “working” in workshops, such as one where 150 people with disabilities hand sort trash and clean garbage bins, with some earning only 44 cents an hour. The complaint noted that these conditions have persisted for decades, despite repeated reports and plans calling for action for reform. Again, this type of work is not unique to Oregon, and can be found throughout the US.

State Data: The National Report on Employment
Services and Outcomes, ICI, UMass Boston

Also, nearly every state reports integrated employment as only a small part of their day services. A recent article from the Institute on Community Inclusion at UMass Boston concluded that less than one in five people nationally are provided supported employment services, and that “there has not been a meaningful change in the number of people with ID/DD in integrated employment since 2001.”

In response to the complaint and the weight of the DOJ joining, Oregon Governor Kitzhaber issued an Executive Order to stop funding work assessments in sheltered workshops in 2014, and to stop funding sheltered workshops for those coming out of school or not already in one.

The Good

Every service system serves more people each year, yet the percentage of people in the majority service, sheltered work, stays the same. In effect, the numbers of people entering segregated work grows larger than those entering integrated work. In other words, four times as many people enter sheltered work each year as integrated work, making the problem larger and more difficult with time.

The Oregon executive order effectively freezes new placements in sheltered workshops, ending their continued growth. In addition, by eliminating work assessments in workshops, the order acknowledges the work being done there has little to no validity for predicting vocational preference or competence for any individual.

The state also says it will establish and implement a policy that Employment Services shall be evidence-based and individualized. Over the next nine years, the state sets targets to provide job services to 2,000 individuals.

The Bad

The Order considers group employment of eight or less, including crews and enclaves (an antiquated definition of supported employment) to be “integrated employment settings.” Group employment models have serious issues, and are not considered best practices, nor are they individualized as the Order announces services should be. Treating group placements as successful vocational outcomes misses an important point.

The Ugly

Disability Rights Oregon (DRO) immediately noted the planning holes in the Order regarding the future of the workshops in the state. Although “a significant reduction over time of state support of sheltered work” is stated, DRO notes that it provides “no adequate or effective commitment to benchmarks, system outcomes, or re-allocating or re-distributing resources to provide individuals with disabilities access to employment services in integrated settings. In sum, the plan all but assures that the goals for delivering services to individuals in the community are advisory goals and not commitments.”

This means there is little realistic planning for the challenging process to transfer to real community jobs those workers already placed in segregated facilities earning sub-minimum wages. And, according to the benchmarks, probably only a third of those already placed there will have access to employment serves over the next decade. Systems change requires a stronger effort in moving people out of workshops, not just closing the door to get in. It’s like trying to end institutionalization by simply stopping intakes. That’s not really a process, it’s more just a waiting game, and gives up on the residents already there.

Although this Executive Order acknowledges the goal of increasing employment and decreasing segregated work, as the system continues to grow, in all likelihood, most workers still stuck in sheltered facilities will continue to have no other options during their lifetime.

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Low Productivity: More of An Excuse than Obstacle to Real Work

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Low productivity assumptions

Several issues reside in the heated discussions over the need to change the traditional day service model for people with disabilities. But the defining one relates to competing beliefs about productivity: 

Can individuals with the most significant disabilities be productive in the workplace, such that sub-minimum wage is unnecessary? 

Those in the individualized community employment sector, myself included, believe yes. We use a zero-exclusion model, reject sub-minimum wage (referred to as 14(c), its legislative shorthand), and no group employment. Looking at various US national databases, these efforts represent probably only about 15% of people with developmental disabilities receiving day services.

Those providers in the much larger majority, the traditional day service sector, utilize segregated work centers and sub-minimum wage, and often rely on group employment models such as enclaves or crews. Yet, the functional levels of those they serve do not appear different from those in individualized community employment.
It appears that the loudest argument against ending 14c sub-minimum wage has been that its removal will take away employment opportunities for those with the most severe challenges. For example, on this blog, commenters talk about how, without a workshop or sub-minimum wage, their son or daughter would be left with little to do. And professional lobbyists for agencies providing more traditional services make the same case. In a recent In These Times article, reporter Mike Elk noted that even leading congressional disability advocate Sen. Tom Harkin will not pursue ending sub-minimum wage, stating that he “has heard from a number of advocates for people with disabilities that eliminating the sub-minimum wage option without having a real plan to create sustainable employment alternatives would be detrimental to Americans with disabilities currently working in 14(c) settings.” 
In reality, there is a real plan that has been around for over 30 years. It’s called supported employment. And eliminating 14(c) does not completely reflect what advocates have actually proposed, which is eventually eliminating it by phasing it out. The article then notes a key source of the position of retaining sub-minimum wage was Harkin’s former top disability staffer who now works as a lobbyist for ACCSES, a coalition of providers. He is quoted as saying: 

  • “Would you hire somebody who is working at 30% and not meeting productivity goals?” 
  • “What if somebody is not capable with or without an accommodation of working at a regular job?  Should we force them into a rehabilitation program with no work or sit at home and watch TV?” 
  • “If you eliminated 14(c), you would lose the opportunity for these people to be trained to be employed.”
Examine these statements carefully. What does 30% productivity mean? Where did it come from? As demonstrated in a workshop? On what tasks? With what support? Is this rate set in stone? How reliable is this a predictor of job success in the community?

A number like that put on a person is damaging; it is just an arbitrary label like any other stereotype.

The assertion that removing sub-minimum wage will lead to job loss is not only unproven, but false. This is demonstrated by the many workers across the US with very challenging disabilities who are working at minimum wage or better, yet whose productivity ratings in traditional (segregated) work training settings were extremely low. It also sets up a false choice (i.e., low paid work or none at all). This kind of thinking is only true if you have a narrow (and I would argue obsolete) view of job placement, productivity, and what people are capable of.

Here is the missing piece: The best predictor of job success is not whether we can convince employers to let people work at lower standards for lower wages; it is how well we customize employment and provide job supports to meet productivity demands. It is inherently unfair to close perceived productivity gaps by reducing the wages of those who need money the most, especially when we have other proven tools to enhance productivity. 

Essentially, human service agencies have relied on sub-minimum wage as an entry tool to access jobs (or keep people “busy” in workshops) in situations that are probably not well-matched nor sufficiently supported or accommodated to enhance good productivity. While it might be somewhat understandable, given the pressure on providers to met job goals, it is a poor solution to the chronic history of unemployment of those with disabilities. With better training and using existing job customization tools, sub-minimum wage is not necessary.

The continuing use of sub-minimum wage is actually hindering our ability to promote and provide well-matched employment. It has become an obstacle, first because of its misuse (the ongoing documentation of many instances of low wage exploitation alone should cause it to end). And secondly, because it has caused providers to rely on a “low cost” plea for job placement, rather than investing in the real task of developing the skills job developers need to produce a more productive job situation.

There are likely many, who after reading this, will still not agree, thinking such job matches and supports such as I describe are unrealistic for most. Note that such customized employment is indeed already being accomplished in many places. In a future blog, I will to try to explain more about how to individualize jobs such that productivity can be reached to justify commensurate wages.

Productivity, at first glance, seems to be just a matter of how fast you do what is given to you. But dig deeper, and you see that is more about how well the worker is matched and supported to accomplish something needing to be done. And the answer on succeeding in that, though challenging, is up to the provider’s abilities at customizing, accommodating, carving, training, and more.

Lobbyists for day programs hanging on to sub-minimum wage as an answer for their belief about those “not capable of work” need to rethink the message they are giving. “He has 30% productivity” is no better than any other discriminatory disability stereotype, and it flies in the face of federal law where there is a presumption of employability. And it’s a damn shame that Senator Harkin has accepted it as fact.

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Learning to Respect People’s Dreams

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“Really, an astronaut?” Sometimes dream jobs expressed by job seekers with disabilities, especially those entering the employment arena for the first time, can be challenging for professionals to hear. But an element of good career planning includes the ability to be open to possibilities and what they might mean, even those that seem obviously “unrealistic.”


As I explain in this brief video, when people reveal personal information, it always can teach us something. Dreams, however seemingly unreachable, must be treated with respect. This doesn’t require us to accept a mission of pursuing every lofty goal a job seeker has. We cannot promise to make someone an astronaut. But helping people to approach their dreams is always possible. And learning what we can from their desires can help guide us in their job search. Watch the 2-minute video to get an idea. 

This clip is from “Let’s Get Everyone to Work,” sponsored by the 
Florida Developmental Disabilities Council and produced by Diane Wilkins and Camry Greenwood.