USA: Proposal to end subminimum wages, public comments requested

For folks in the USA there is a proposal to remove the exception that allows "productivity-based subminimum wages to workers with disabilities."

The current law allows certain charities, e.g., Goodwill, to hire disabled workers and pay them very low wages.

Title: Employment of Workers With Disabilities Under Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act

If you support this change you can leave a comment here:
https://www.federalregister.gov/doc...r-section-14c-of-the-fair-labor-standards-act

The comment period ends in 8 days (January 17, 2025)

 

How can a charity be run by people who can make it function as a business enough to pay themselves, but cannot make it function as a busines to create viable, fairly paid, employment for disabled Members, or at least pay them the mimum wage.

It does not sound like a charitable priority to badly underpay disabled people working for the charity, might as well just give them inflated expenses for volunteeirng, or hire someone who knews how to make a business work but wants to make it work for disabled people too

 

You don't need to convince me! Maybe you can copy/paste your post as a public comment - the more comments they get, the better!

This is a really old law (from the 1930s) that needs to be eliminated.

Disability advocates in the USA have been trying to change this law for a long time. Quite a few states have already banned the practice.

A recent study shows that banning sub-minimum wages has little downside:

https://www.disabilityscoop.com/202...inimum-wage-states-see-workforce-gains/31228/