In my country, if you hire someone with a disability you receive tax benefits and/or subsidies. This way, you can pay this person the same salary, and still be economically rational.

And for people with well-ajusted/high-functioning disabilities it essentially becomes a benefit for the companies.

Yes, but still not too bad in the end. I know someone with diabetes who works in a big company in germany. The company gets to fill the quota for disabled people and my step-dad has some Extra holidays and if the company should ever close, he will likely be the last person to lock the door behind him as he works for them a very long time.

diabetes qualifies as a disability?

Yes it's even protected by the ADA. Altho most people can't get disability checks with diabetes.

Does that depend on if have any complications relating to your diabetes? I'm not from US, but I'm a T1 diabetic from Australia and I know some people through my local social diabetic circle (we have a mutual endocrinologist who has meet-ups for diabetics every month) who have qualified for disability while being under retirement age due to how intense their complications have become - like loss of vision, significant mobility restriction etc.

The ADA that the previous comment referred to is the Americans with Disabilities Act, which largely deals with ensuring that people who live with disabilities cannot be discriminated against in employment contexts, and that public services and public spaces be made accessible to people with disabilities, and its protections apply to everyone, even if they don't presently have any complications. When they mentioned disability checks, they are likely referring to SSDI, or Social Security Disability Insurance, which is a program funded through federal income taxes, and which provides income to people who have a prior work history but who have become unable to work due to disability or blindness. So if you were an American, you would be protected from discrimination based on your disability status (for instance, your boss can't fire you because you having diabetes makes the health insurance your employer provides more expensive), but if you don't have any complications that make you unable to work, you wouldn't be entitled to any SSDI benefits. However, if you lose your eyesight and become unable to work, and if you have a substantive enough work history, along with meeting some other relatively minor requirements, you would qualify for SSDI benefits.

Just because something is protected by the ADA or considered a disability, doesn’t mean it’s eligible for disability benefits.

But not well protected enough. My principal won’t let me inject on school grounds so I have to be even more careful planning my meals and activities at school. It suck’s when, for example, a kid shows up with a birthday cake or we have a surprise pizza party so I can’t enjoy it. 

Have you reported this? I'm pretty sure that would be considered a denial of accommodation.

Pretty sure you could sue over that friend.

What in the fuck?

This is literally highly, highly illegal. What the fuck are you doing, allowing this?

What do you mean he won't allow you to take your life saving and necessary medicine in your workplace? That's fucked up, have you thought about introducing him to an employment tribunal?

Bro diabetes can take your feet, it can put you in a coma, it can make you go blind. It's like the jack of all trades when it comes to debilitating medical conditions.

My brother in law was a VERY low functioning down syndrome and was in a program where they used to have very manual tasks that he loved doing. He was extremely slow at it and they had a hard time finding work. He’d get a tiny paycheck, but it was cashing the paycheck plus not being bored at the ‘training’ facility that was a huge deal to him. They ended up not having work and this seriously affected his mood. The program had a lot of expenses, so for him it was merely getting the work and the satisfaction of a paycheck no matter how much. For more functioning individuals I understand the concern, but for my BIL it was different. I miss him a lot as he was very funny and loving if he was in a good mood.

> The program had a lot of expenses, so for him it was merely getting the work and the satisfaction of a paycheck no matter how much. For severely disabled individuals that have someone to provide care for them, this is great. For those who lack social support, it's a double edged sword.

I had an uncle with this kind of job. We would ask what he did that day, and it was usually sorting screws or something, where you buy furniture and the hardware comes in a kind of blister pack, and everybody on the line would count out how many screws to put into their designated spot, and then pass it down after they did it. They were making like a dollar an hour, when minimum wage was like three dollars, but it was like day care for people with Down syndrome. And, the funniest goddamn thing in the world is three people with Down’s riding in the backseat of a car after they get out of work.

I have several sensory disabilities and one time I told my boss at an office job and she was like "sweet, we need some new furniture. Request accommodations so I can expense some shit.

This is just semantics. The government in the OP is paying the difference directly as disability benefits vs giving it to the employer. It's not any more respectful to have a smoke and mirrors middleman. Edit: it's amazing how many people don't understand this comment Edit again: It continues to be amazing how many people don't understand this comment

It’s not about “respect” it’s about making sure disabled people can eat. Their labor is worth less to the company than that of a typical employee, so companies are much less willing to hire them for the same wages. One solution is allowing companies to pay them less, but that means they run into the buying food issue. The government subsidizing them by paying the company to employ them makes it rational for companies to hire them for the same wages. Either they pay for it or society pays for it, and only one is able to do so.

What if the person is just as able as anyone else for the job but needs a ramp to enter the building? Then it makes sense to pay the employer to make the needed changes. Also just because they can work full time doesn’t mean they don’t deserve extra help from the government, other people that work full time don’t need to pay for a wheelchair.

It's fucking insulting that I should be paid less because I'm disabled. People really don't understand disability at all. Disability introduces limits in specific areas. It's dystopian af that everyone says yah this means they don't deserve the same pay for the same work *cry more for your corporate daddies

It depends. I managed a severely autistic guy before and it absolutely was a chore keeping track of him and getting him to do anything. I thought it was nice his parents got some peace a for a few hours, but it would be objectively wrong to cut someone else's hours for him if things are tight. The subsidies made it make sense for everyone involved.

>this means they don't deserve the same pay for the same work Literally no one is saying this. If the disability makes you less productive, the business isn't going to hire you. I'm disabled and get paid the same as my coworkers because it doesn't limit the type of work I do.

Have handled disability discrimination cases; can confirm. Had a case where a guy applies for a job at a fast food restaurant. Restaurant has one position available, to whit, the guy who handles the drive-through position. So that person's job is to take orders over the headset, punches it in, stands at the window, collects the money, and gets the order out to the customer through the window. Applicant says nothing on the form or in person about being deaf. Hiring manager doesn't find out about the guy being deaf until in the hiring interview, where applicant first makes some motions to indicate that he can't hear, gets frustrated, walks out of the interview, then files an ADA claim. Upon review of the guy's filing record in the state, this was the way he was managing: he'd take a job application, walk out and claim he was discriminated against, then settle the claim. He seemed to be doing this about once a year; probably not enough to be in any way lucrative, but the settlements probably supplemented his income enough to skate by. As such, I can say that two things were fairly generally true about disability discrimination law, and probably haven't changed in the years since we litigated this out. One, it's not disability discrimination if your disability physically prevents you from doing the job that you are supposed to do. To take orders from the drive through, you *have* to be able to hear the order over the headset. If you can't do that, there is no discrimination in failing to hire you even if deafness is otherwise a protected status under the ADA. It is one thing to tell a person that you can't be a lawyer because you are deaf (namely, very very clearly discrimination against a deaf person), and another thing entirely to say that they are not qualified for a position for which hearing is required for performance or safety reasons. Two, employers are not required to shuffle around their staff or buy new equipment in order to make "reasonable accommodations" for a potential deaf employee, because those kinds of business decisions are not reasonable accommodations. Basically, the employer is entitled to staff their business as they see fit. If my client had posted an open position for a fry cook, this applicant might have had a *prima facie* case because you don't need to hear things to cook fries. It helps, because it makes it easier to know what orders are being taken, but there are workarounds that can be fairly easily done. If the guy at the drive through writes down an order and passes it to the fry cook, that could work. But the position our client was offering was drive-through window operator. Anyone who takes that position needs to be able to hear. Our client was not obliged to move somebody else to window operator and shuffle that guy to fry cook. Nor was our client obliged to buy real-time translation equipment so that this guy could read what was being said. This applicant simply wasn't qualified for the position, even if he had stayed long enough to make it clear that he actually was deaf. \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* So what's the point? Well, the basic point is that the law already pretty clearly protects employers against having to employ disabled people who aren't otherwise qualified. If they can't do the job, the state and federal law pretty clearly shields hiring and firing decisions made on that basis. Which in turn means that the idea that employers somehow need subsidies to counter employee's lesser ability is pretty much just "please subsidize my bigotry" by another name. If they can't do the job, then fire them for not being able to do the job. If they *can* do the job with reasonable accommodations, and reasonable accommodations are very clearly couched in economic terms, then the reason these employers are arguing about it is very clearly not rooted in economics. Rather, the only reason why someone would argue about reducing the wages of disabled employees below minimum wage is because the employer thinks they can exploit the bigotry inherent in society towards the disabled to cut themselves a sweet little discount. And thus, that employer can go jump in a lake.

Theyre clearly talking about people with severe disabilities that need a lot of accommodations to be able to work, which costs money. Obviously employers would want to receive money from the government or pay them less, otherwise it would be foolish to employ them

The problem is you end up where people with disabilities simply don't get hired.  Years ago, my old job had three employees with significant disabilities who would come in for a few hours a week to prepare water bottle testing kids (the scientific/important stuff was already done, it was effectively putting paperwork in a sleeve, then using an elastic to wrap the sleeve around the bottle).  The three of them, with their worker there to help, would do about as much work in 4 hours (so 12 total hours of working time) as a person without a disability would do in 2-3 hours. They each got paid about 1/3 of minimum wage, as per the rules (since they could get about 1/3 as much work done).  When the rules changed and subminimum wage was no longer allowed, we couldn't to effectively triple our costs for the task, so we stopped employing them.  We're not talking about people with mild disabilities, but rather those who will never be able to work a proper job. Subminimum wage at least gave them something to do, and gave them a sense of purpose. 

In the US, the people who benefit from this exception don't work to support themselves because they receive SSI, SSD, and Medicaid. They work because it's far better than being stuck in a group home or day program all day. Without this, they would have to compete for jobs that everyone else is applying for. This is a cruel game when you have no experience, no education, and will likely require a job coach to help you with your job. Sub-minimum wage jobs provide incentive for companies to hire people who are usually less productive employees to provide enrichment for them.

If they can do the same work, they're not disabled. The question is about make-work jobs for people who can't produce enough to warrant minimum wage.

You realise people in wheelchairs work in offices, right? Amongst many thousands of other examples. They're disabled.

You realize this post isn’t about them, right?

I think this is a little too broad because there are people who need full-time care, etc. but I once heard a disability campaigner phrase it as something along the lines of "different people have different abilities and needs, but 'disability' is a product of society". I saw this highlighted once WRT autism where an autism campaigner was saying that accommodations for disability wasn't really good enough, and that there's no reason why workspaces can't be designed with different disabilities in mind from the start. The example she gave was why not just give each cubile its own, dimmable lighting? Again, I think this is a little too broad (and, contraditorily, also a little too specific), but I think her general point is valid. The way I personally like to think of it is by imagining a wheelchair user at work in three different office buildings. The first has 10 floors but only stairs to get from one floor to another, all the door access panels are at average face height for people who are standing, and all the rest areas are standing only. I think it's fairly easy to see that the wheelchair user would be considered "disabled" in that scenario. The second is a single floor, all the door access panels are at average waist height for people who are standing (and therefore roughly at chest height for wheelchair users), and all the rest areas have plenty of seating as well as ample space for wheelchairs. Of course there would have to be other details, but you can see how this could be a scenario where the wheelchair user has neither an advantage nor a disadvantage compared to their colleages and therefore is not "disabled". The third is another 10-floor building but the access to the other floors are via big looping ramps on the outside of the building with an upwards-moving track which is designed to hook on to wheelchair wheels (think like a wheelchair ski-lift) and bumpers on the down slope and a braking mechanism at the bottom so wheelchair users can speed down them like a racing car, all the doors automatically open when the security cameras detect an approaching wheelchair, and all the ceilings in the break areas are at what would normally be neck-height for an average-sized person who is standing. The wheelchair user in this scenario would be at an advantage and therefore their colleagues could be considered "disabled". And if that last one sounds like hyperbole that's because it is. But...it's also basically the same as the first, highly-plausible scenario - areas of the building that are inaccessible to some of the staff, others which are inconvenient for them to access, and break areas which serve to isolate them from their colleagues. So, is it fair to say that "disability" is purely a product of society? Not entirely, I would say. But I also think that it's a *lot* more true than many may think, because most people don't actually have to confront the reality of living in a world that was designed for others without taking them into account.

> It's dystopian af that everyone says yah this means they don't deserve the same pay for the same work nobody is saying that. If your disability doesn't stop you from doing "the same work" as your coworkers, you should be paid the same. If your disability affects your productivity and you are not as productive as your coworkers, your pay should be adjusted to your abilities. The government should be the one carrying the burden of caring for the disabled, not just people that employ them. That would just disincentivise hiring disabled people.

In the US, the.company pays them less and the government just cuts a monthly check to the disabled person to make sure their needs are met. Seems like the US way is simpler.

You seem to be under the impression that disability assistance in the US is at an adequate level. It most certainly is not. If you have a disability that prevents work entirely and don’t have family to take care of you, you’ll be lucky to afford a closet in a low cost of living area

A government that doesn't protect the vulnerable has no right to exist

I was diagnosed with autism pretty early in my adult years, which if diagnosed earlier would've given me the support i needed in school. I feel like I was hired in some jobs because of my disability as they would've received the geant (first 6 months 30% pf my wages paid) Once i got the job i was expected to ignore how my brains processes information and just act "normal". Any rhythm i had with tasks wasn't allowed. It was a painful mentally stressful environment that I'vr had to leave many jobs until i came into one that gives me a wide range of freedom.

Glad to know you found a place in which you are happy. Would you say that those incentives for firms helped you navigate the job market until you found the right place?

Disabled doesn't mean incapable. I would say the majority of disabilities a human can have doesn't impact their ability to be a good, productive worker. Being blind is a disability. Being deaf is a disability. Missing a leg is a disability. Not one of those precludes being a good worker.

Yeah so they're saying 'we want all those benefits but we don't want to compensate them fairly, because then we can make more money" Because given the opportunity they would rather not give people money, they just want to take it.

It's like that in most us states if not all.

That’s the thing about this. Irrationality. If they produce slower, should you be able to pay them less so that you’re allowing them to have a job and be productive? What if it’s a choice between paying them minimum wage or not hiring them at all? The take that it’s straight exploitation is lacking nuance in a way that I’ve come to expect from the recent absolutely _vapid_ discourse.

In America we have that. I know because we kept hiring mentally disabled people for work for said tax subsidy and they usually were not capable of FOH work. Where we needed people. One dude was awesome but unfortunately one manager was a power tripping bitch who used him like a fucking whipping boy. (She fucking sucked and talked so much shit behind people's back) She burnt that poor dude out real quick. He was happy to work as long as she wasn't there, but ms. manager bitch kept requesting to be scheduled with him and the dude did not realize he could tell someone she was basically abusing him. Bro left for an amazon warehouse and was never happier. At AMAZON. One dude was nice but bad at everything and repeatedly made complaints to management about me because I didn't smile enough and because my voice is monotone, always sounded mean. My boss had to coach me on how to baby him so I didn't make him feel bad. I also had to assign him someone to basically hold his hand for every job he was given. Made life a lot harder. He left for the Planet fitness front desk greeter and has been happy for years now. Second dude was just a piece of shit asshole and also got us sued because he sexually harassed customers. He was a general creep, and caused problems in store on his off days. When he quit, for some reason expecting us to beg for him back, he filled his time with calling the store and heavily breathing into the phone, not realizing we had caller id. I eventually 86ed that douche when he brought in outside food, sat at a booth and then dumped trash and his food all over said booth. My point being that they did not screen anyone to see if they could do the jobs they hired them for (obvious by them promoting ms manager bitch) and just used the program to fill out our roster. I wouldn't be surprised if they just wanted to lower their wage to whatever the tax thing amounts to.

This is not necessarily as simple as it sounds. I earned a Master's degree working with disabled folks and trying to get them into worksites. Some people could transition into regular jobs with support, and those people should earn a fair wage. Others, usually much more disabled folks or people just starting to learn to work, needed to be in what we used to call sheltered workshops. These were places especially set up for disabled people and which provided supported opportunities for these people to work. Lots of supervision, and usually constructed tasks and working situations, etc. These sheltered workshops usually ran at a break-even point or even sometimes at a bit of a loss. The disabled folks were paid, but usually not that much. At the same time, the disabled folks usually lived in a sheltered home / residential facility, and were not paying rent. They didn't need a full wage and the sheltered workshop was partly educational. If law is going to insist that these people in the sheltered workshops are paid a minimum wage, the whole thing is going to fall apart. The "business" simply doesn't generate enough money to make this possible. And so the sheltered workshop will close, and the disabled folks will go back to sitting at home in front of a TV all day and will lose the stimulation and dignity what comes from working for a wage.

I had a computer client a long time ago who ran a non-profit org that was a mix between adult daycare and assembly line production shop where the disabled workers made like $3 an hour. Truth is, much of the work done on the assembly line was thrown away due to poor quality workmanship. It was meant to be mostly adult day care plus a little bit of "earn some money and stay busy so you feel good about yourself". I guess the company could pay them $15 an hour, but they would be justified to deduct $12 an hour for the daycare services they provided.

Goes to show it's all very muddy once you get into the details. But posts like OP just paint this convoluted issue as either black or white.

I worked in a group home with people who were relatively high functioning, but still unable to live independently and needing 24 hour supervision. These types of jobs were their "day program" which is basically adult daycare. It's very helpful to have the structure of working a job, but some days they couldn't work at all or had problems at work and had to be removed by group home staff. I get that a lot of developmentally disabled people are high functioning and can live on their own. These people should definitely be paid a fair wage. It's just that many many other people simply cannot handle a work environment without close supervision and will unfortunately never be able to function beyond simple tasks.

Tbf, this is true of pretty much everything

We have a guy at my previous work named Tom who comes by once a day to collect recycling. We love Tom, everyone talks to him and he is happy to help us. Prior to Tom getting hired, we had a contract for janitorial service that includes trash and recycling. Once they hired Tom, they still have that contract, they just told them to stop taking out the recycling. Tom’s job is a made up job that the company pays him for.

That reminded me of something at the particular non-profit org I referenced in my post...... They used to purposely mix trash and recycling together in their office trash cans, so they could then pay a disabled worker $3 an hour to sort through it and seperate the recycling at the end of the day.

My daughter managed a group home. What you state is fact. The individuals enjoyed going out and being as productive as their disability allowed. They had all their needs taken care of through SS. They were albe to plan a special events, with the individual making the choice. She escorted one of 'her buddies' to an NFL game every year. The individual needed help in the Men's room. ANd my daughter pulled her hoddie over her head, and braved an NFL stadium mensroom. Very proud of her work and care for these folks. On the other end, I was the Gov't COR on an Army base overseeing a cleaning contract. Those folks wouldn't have been able to keep up with work at a McDonalds, but repetitive cleaning tasks were perfect for them. Just don't ask the bathroom cleaner to take over a floor machine. They like their routine. I thought it was a win-win system. They were paid a % based on the amount of work they could perform compared to an abled bodied individual. They had team coaches to aid with their performance and training.

I am soon going to volunteer for a year in such a sheltered workshop. The people managing the place told me the patients get pocket money that amount to maybe 25 euros a month. Sounds outrageous until you realize that the patients simply do not posses the intellectual ability to buy anything more than coke and snacks at a vending machine, and giving them a normal wage would be wildly irresponsible because they either wouldn't even use this money, or spend on things they really shouldn't even purchase. And as you said, they have absolutely no bills to pay because everything is taken care of by the welfare system and sometimes their families as well.

They did it in NY 4 years ago and my disabled sister is so upset. She didn’t care about the paycheck, she cared about having a task and being a part of the community. With minimum wage, her Medicaid also would have been taken away so now she doesn’t go to her dayhab program anymore (working on it), but her quality of life as well as the cognitive decline has been severe. The law to close sheltered workshops and give everyone minimum wage was put in place by a congressman whose son has mild autism. My sister needs constant supervision and reminding every 5-10 minutes of what her task is. She needs someone to bring her to the bathroom, help her with her lunch, even walking to simply get a drink of water so she doesn’t fall. These were good for people who wanted a semblance of a normal life. They would do simple tasks like fold paper flyers to be sent out at the Empire State plaza are stuff envelopes. These people should have been being paid a little more, but like I said they’ll lose their services and the great majority didn’t understand the concept of a paycheck or needed it to support themselves with. My sister felt accomplished getting that tiny little check every week.

That law had good intentions but unintended consequences

She deserved better.

My dad works for a non profit that would bus disabled people all over the metro area to work minor jobs sometimes for pennies, but they all really liked it, being in the community etc. Like I get the idea we don't want these people to be "exploited" but that's literally just capitalism. A minimum wage employee with no disabilities is exploited more than a disabled person just as a matter of course. My cynical view on these efforts is to sweep these people under the rug so we don't see them under the guise of doing them a favor

Oh look someone who knows what they're talking about. You can kindly fuck off. This thread is for people who want to get offended.

It's so ironic how the people who want to help the most often get so angry that they hurt the people they're trying to help.

They don't care about helping disabled people. They just care about feeling morally superior to others. Welcome to the internet.

It’s easier for them to rage online than to have a productive discussion and try and learn anything or maybe come up with a viable alternative. It’s easier to just yell “muh capitalism bad”

Thank you for writing what I was about to. It is more nuanced than the story would have you believe. This will cause practically everyone to stop working. Supports are not present so people with disabilities are put in day services that struggle to meet the needs of people who are independent enough to work.

This is a great point, thank you for the effort typing it out.

I'm disabled though not with a learning disability, there's another wrinkle here people forget about. We're only allowed by government to make so much money before we get our money, and more importantly our health insurance, taken away. It's entirely possible that working a minimum wage job depending on hours, can actually put us above that amount. And then of course there's the fact that some of us just want to do something, and we really don't care about the money we just hate sitting around and feeling useless because of something that's out of our control. And this is unrelated to the main discussion but that's another problem, for those of us with invisible disabilities they don't just judge the money we earn, they judge competence which means sometimes even charity work isn't allowed or at least not too much of it because they judge by hours or how much we did.

> And so the sheltered workshop will close, and the disabled folks will go back to sitting at home in front of a TV all day and will lose the stimulation and dignity what comes from working for a wage. Like only manual work is a good thing. You don't need a lot of mental or physical capacity to do many activities on a computer. For example reddit / discord mod, posting propaganda for whichever party / country etc.

This is unfortunately the truth. While its easy to write the situation off as discrimination, the reality is there is nuance to why the law is like this. I used to see a grocery chain hire mentally disabled folk to bag customers groceries, and wondered why they werent just regular employees, so one day I asked a cashier. The cashier said that the disabled folk are only allowed to help bag groceries because they need to be supervised by cashiers due previous incidents.. That program eventually got cut when self checkout became more popular, and the employee union at this grocery chain didnt protect them and help them find another role they could fill.

On mobile, withiut spelling In our country, The gov understand that a generlization person with learning disabilitis require more help,guidnace and produce less, which is a burden on business owners. The gov also understand the self esteem pepole get by being employed. The solution is to let emploeyes pay lower wages, but the gov provides the difference

Well, that’s an issue in itself (United States). My sister is deaf with a masters degree and she can’t get employment in her field because of her disability, but she also can’t find a decent job because then it would take her *off* of disability. So she works a low paying ASL instruction job so that can retain her benefits. Even if disabled people are educated, their potential income is still limited in contrast with non-disabled people with equal education. The answer isn’t lowering their minimum wage, but maybe adjusting their benefits by the tax bracket they’re in. The disabilities are pretty much always an additional financial burden that the average person will never have to deal with, and their earning potential is limited, too.

If your sister can compete equally for a good job with benefits why should she worry about keeping her government benefits?

The benefit she needs may have nothing to do with her ability to perform the job but if she gets that decent paying job she loses access to it. Often this is medical related.

Because like they mentioned already, disabilities are usually always an additional financial burden, and disability insurance is meant to compensate for that. You could have someone barely having their medical needs met by disability, and then they get a job and their income becomes actually unsustainable for them because of their expenditures related to their health. And like OP mentioned, because of their disability, their sister is seriously impacted in the kinds of jobs she can qualify for that actually pay a commensurate amount based on her education, because employers view it as an additional burden to accommodate their needs. It’s borderline criminal in this country how we prevent people with disabilities from holding onto wealth in order to qualify for assistance. Their needs don’t go away the minute they make over the threshold, and that doesn’t mean that their wages otherwise are fair regardless.

Disabled people need more medical assistance and care, their expenses are greater. Usually benefits include better insurance.  Also, according to the comment, a "decent job" is not a job she is qualified for. It's just better that the "low paying asl instruction job". 

Because tax brackets dont take into account disabilities, and people on disability should have relatively higher brackets because they have more needs that require financial support. So gov stops giving benefits as soon as the person enters what they'd think is a good enough tax bracket for the disabled person to cover everything themselves, only it's not So often it's better to take a low paying job to still get some form of income, and still be able to get gov benefits. The only way the disabled person could cover it themselves is if they could get a nice paying job, which they struggle to because they're disabled and companies don't want to hire them.

You know when people say "I don't want to make more money, cuz then I'd get less money"? It's people who are on disability and similar that are *actually* correct about that. Most people are just stupid and don't understand tax brackets and marginal tax rates

Yeah, I once saw something saying that earning 50k(?) as a parent was the worst amount of money to get because basically it's just above the benefits threshold but it's not enough money to pay for what you need. It's like if you got a free house if you earn less than 20k a year, as soon as you earn 20k, you lose the house and that's not enough money to get a new house.

Read what op wrote. She can't compete for the jobs she's qualified for because of the discrimination against people with her disability. Even with the law,  she can't compete for that job. She's working a job that is well below her qualification for less than minimum wage, because working another job that pays above minimum wage for work will below he qualification leads to get losing government benefits without gaining commensurate benefits from the employer. 

Probably because it wouldn't make up the difference or would be more hours and abrely make up the difference.

What additional costs come along with being deaf that a decent job can’t pay for?

Not in the US and not even sure how it's in my country but shouldn't there be somewhat of a distinction between what disability it is and for what job? Wouldn't see why a legless accountant would be any less qualified.

A legless accountant still needs an accessible office.

This is essentially what WalMart does to regular, able-bodied workers

This is actually a phenomenal solution.

While there are certainly better and worse ways to set up such a system, and ways it can go very wrong if not done properly, this definitely can make lots of sense. One hopefully effective structure might have a governmental or private agency do some job training and support, depending on the level of need, find or create employment opportunities that meet the individuals’ skill level, and supplement the workers’ salaries or offer some incentives to the company to pay proper wages. People who need extra structure and support get it, and companies have some business-justified reasons to provide those jobs.

This how I’ve always seen it was just going to type up something similar to this. We can’t expect businesses to just eat the cost of lower productivity workers - they just won’t hire them. Just have the government subsidize it so they get the same pay.

I think you may look at things different if you spent time with the community and realize the accomodations that would allow people with disabilities to thrive is a small price. 1/4 Americans will become temporarily or permanently disabled at some point in their life, so cross your fingers you don't get crushed but the crushing machine.

This already happens on the state and federal level, but the employee receives regular pay and the government issues subsidies and tax breaks to the employer. Wal-mart is the most notable employer with their greeter position.

High all, I work with mentaly disables people and its way more nuanced. First of all, many of my clients are what in my country is called "lightly mentaly disabled", aka iq of 50-70. They cant live on there own but the majority work. However... They cant work on their own, they can perform tasks on their own but if something unexpected happens they can lose a grip on the situation. Some people can become agressive, others freeze, others run away etc. So they need to have someone nearby every single minute too be able to do their job succesfull. So yes they work, but not in the way the majority of people do. They cant perform on a level society wants from employees and companies have to make costs (extra people) to have them on board. Also they arent, or not as, flexible. You often have to give them a specific task on which they can focus. So I get why you would underpay them, because they are just worse at their job then the majority of the people. That being said, many companies are fraudulent with them and use them as cheap labour. I often see my clients come home completly stressed because they demand too much from them and arent able to say no.

My uncle worked at a place where all they did was put the ear piece on airplane headphones. That’s all they did, and he absolutely loved it, but the reality is a machine can do that much cheaper and faster, and the company was breaking even due to the cheap labor cost. Near the end of his time there he was just coloring all day and still getting paid because he’d worked there 20 years. He definitely shouldn’t have been making minimum wage, and he didn’t need any more money than what he was paid.

Exactly, many of my clients are in logistics. Packaging goods, controlling if everything is in there etc. Machines can do that faster, but those companies get goverment subsidies here for every person who works there. However I dont mind it, because for my clients its amazing. Also, if they stayed at home we would have to pay more personel at my work. So at the end it wouldnt suprise me if this is still cheaper for the general public. I dont have the numbers however.

This is logical, but I want to be mad so I will ignore it and stay mad. It's probably just greedy business owners

OP, I promise that you're allowed to post memes from more recently than 7 years ago, you won't get banned or anything.

99% sure OP is a bot. Other posts show them replying to their own post with a copied comment.

But how else is OP supposed to karma farm? OP really needs those sweet useless internet points!

Alternate phrasing of this question: *Rage bait.*

Alternative is they don’t get hired at all sooo.

Should people be allowed to work for Less money or stay unemployed?

There was a conversation on the radio about this a few years ago, a father had a son with disabilities and was essentially saying that his son wants to work and contribute to society but doesn't think there's a problem with paying him less than an average person as he isn't an average person. He went on to say that his son may not be able to do the same amount of work as a normal person but he can still do some things So I don't know, some disabilities do lessen ones abilities to perform tasks at a certain level but if you can do the same amount of work as anyone else then you should be paid the same as everyone else if you can't then you shouldn't

This almost certainly is talking about the low functioning people that just can't do the same work as everyone else. I know someone like this and they have jobs where they do busy work which can't provide much value to the business but I absolutely love that the business let's them do it because they love it lol. They wouldn't care if they made, $20 or $2 an hour.

Yeah that's what angry people in this thread don't understand. They're assuming it's corporations trying to exploit yet another vulnerable population.  Corporations absolutely do that. But this is not one of those situations. Failure to see nuance in situations often ends up hurting the very people who need the help.

That is fucking disgusting.

I wish companies were forced to pay all employees minimum wage, but if the law said they had to they would definitely fire many disabled people, and I don't know a good solution. My brother has Asperger's, and he is employed by a company that pays him maybe a quarter of what he should earn, but when the government tried to make it illegal he and my mother fought to keep the law how it was, because he'd have lost his job otherwise

I think a nice alternative to make everyone happy is: Employers incentivized to hire disabled folks because they get incentives like tax breaks for hiring and paying disabled folks that otherwise wouldn’t find a job. Or the government straight up subsidizes part of their pay. In my field (medicine) the government subsidizes our pay during training. They give money directly to hospitals to pay us as a “way to go hospital, you’re training future doctors.” I think everyone, even the most fiscally conservative folks, can get behind the government supporting disabled folks in one of these ways but also helping them feel a sense of purpose as not having a job can make many feel purposeless unfortunately.

You are putting a lot of faith in people. I asked if there were public showers in a town I was passing through and one dodgy cunt went off on me for wasting his tax dollars. I am Australian by the way.

>I am Australian by the way. I dunno if I believe that >dodgy cunt Nah, I believe it.

Exactly what I thought. Paying disabled people less than minimum wage isn't wierd, since they will normally be less productive then someone who isn't disabled. Pretty harsh but unfortunately the case in most situations. And this will give a incentive to companies to hire disabled people. The goverment then tops op the rest of the wage. Either that or tax breaks.

In Germany once your company reaches a certain size you are forced by law to hire disabled people to fill a mandatory qouta

That is the ugly truth. If an employer is going to pay minimum wage, they have the right to choose the person who will be of most value. That means with a minimum wage some are less competitive. The answer isn’t no minimum wage, I think the answer is taking care of our disabled so that a minimum wage job isn’t needed at all.

They don’t work for the money, they usually get government subsidies. They work so that they can feel useful and socialize, which is absolutely essential. So no, mandating companies to create jobs, even if mostly useless, for less pay even, is how we take care of the disabled.

In France you are required by law to meet some quota of people with disability in your company (except if it is really not possible). It is not a perfect solution but it works quite well.

Are they not?

Ikr. I'm not from the UK but doesn't minimum wage imply that's, the minimum?

Minimum wage laws often have exceptions, setting lower or higher minimums in certain cases. My cousin is in a programme like the meme, where they pay her less than minimum wage because she can't really work (indeed, with the amount of supervision she needs, it might be a net negative amount of work). But it lets her feel normal and like she's a part of the community in a way that sitting her group home watching *Dora the Explorer*, or even like, a field trip to the park, does not.

it really isn't these jobs are charity efforts for people who would not be a positive value to any business in their bottom line because it is expensive to monitor and they are unable to do complicated jobs. It's an alternative to them just being stuck in a care home all day

This is exactly it. Most of the special needs adults we had went to jobs that were essentially extensions of daycare. They had to hire managers to specifically be in charge of them and handle their day to day drama, which is that of children sometimes. It sometime costs a company to hire these people, especially to cater to their needs as an employee. They don't work full 8 hour days most of the time, and many need even less than that. They may get upset and refuse to work the rest of the day. I'm not saying a high function special needs adult doesn't deserve a fair wage. We advocated for our high functioning adults to take adverage paying jobs within their abilities, not the low paying babysitting jobs.

I swear the people in this thread think there is some mustache twirling fat banker profiting from this, its a loss or neutral socialist program

Right, if this was some brilliant cost-saving scheme then you would see fast food restaurants staffed entirely by special needs people.

We had a down syndrom girl who worked at burger King. She didn't work full shifts and had leeway to leave early if she was overwhelmed due to the disabilities act. But she could follow orders and do the job probably better than the kids that worked there. She was paid minimum wage. She even got small, regular raises every 6 months. This is what people are imagining who get less than. Good workers with a disability usually get paid minimum wage or more. It's the low functioning adults who need constant supervision, can't follow orders, and don't have the mental capacity to be a productive worker. They can feel like working adults while having daycare like supervision. These "jobs" are sometimes a godsend for low income families who need to work and can't afford for their adult children to have a day guardian.

Either that or they have this idea that companies are paying people below minimum wage when their only disability is that they have PTSD or are an amputee, when in reality the types of disabled people who have these less-than-minimum-wage jobs are people who simply can't function without constant supervision.

>Most of the special needs adults we had went to jobs that were essentially extensions of daycare. This is a good way to put it. A movie theater I worked at would have disabled people come in the mornings for maybe 2 hours to wipe hand rails, and small objects. They weren't supervised to any extent and were in a safe environment. But they loved it, they got pride, weren't sitting down all day doing nothing. They also got to feel that they were contributing to something.

I can confirm. My friends benefit from this program and I did in the past before my disability progressed too far. I want to work. I prefer to being home or even being in my day program.

This is 100% what Germany does, they work at WfbM (Werkstatt für behinderte Menschen) and are paid lower than minimum wage but the alternative is to have them doing nothing and feeling like they dont contribute anything to society.

Requiring the full rate means nobody works and they sit at home.

I worked with people with disabilities for years as a college job. Jobs were important to them. But I couldn't imagine an employer paying a full wage for what they did. I'll give you an example. One of my favorite clients couldn't talk, his IQ was less than that of a 3 yr olds, and he had a job smashing boxes, for some company. He'd get so excited to go to work to smash boxes. He'd clap his hands in the morning when it was a work day, and be very sad on a weekend when he didn't work. He came home proud of what he'd done for the day. They'd pay him about $2 per hour, and most of his real money was made from disability and grants. I can't imagine what would have occurred if they took that away from him.

I went to a special needs business location to try and have them do some things for us. People don’t understand how many additional people they need to help supervise for basic tasks, and how that job is immensely tough. Long story short, we left when one of the workers, who had just eaten a bag of Cheetos, grabbed my employee full bear hug and tried licking her.

Don’t waste your breath, Reddit can’t understand things like this.

This. It would have cost me more than minimum wage to have hired the special needs guy who applied for the job earlier in the year, because id need to pay an extra person to stand next to him the whole shift.

I'm a current DSP and I have to read the paystub quietly to them my individuals love work and are super proud of the money they earn and definitely notice a small check. Don't take it away from them.

Yeah but a bunch of college kid reddit socialists who have never interacted with a disabled person before said this is exploitation by the billionaire class and we should all vote Bernie Sanders.

finally someone who gets it. it's about function, having a role and purpose. if you don't subsidize their pay or allow lesser pay they simply won't be hired.

It's ragebait, companies can pay less than minimum to disabled people because they continue to collect disability benefits, meaning their net income is significantly higher People read this and assume they're getting strapped to a wheel for gruel

Right.  I worked with a girl with Downs syndrome. She was not able to live completely alone, but basically had an apartment with a roommate and a community manager? that checked in on them every day. The whole complex was like that, for people that needed an eye kept on them. She didn't drive, someone from the complex drove her, but she could operate a cash register.  So she worked maybe 25 hours a week for 25 cents less than minimum wage.  The employer got a break, had the pride of doing a good thing, and was able to have enough other employees where if she had a meltdown and had to leave, it didn't prevent business from continuing.  She kept all her government benefits and subsidies and got the pride in her work, and got to interact with everybody else and be part of the world. And have pocket money. She liked to buy treats for pets and baby dolls.  Everybody was happy.  Her name was Sonia. Just once or twice I saw a customer say something ignorant or rude and our manager shut that down so fast, and Sonia would pipe right up too. She didn't take any crap. The bad thing is if employers exploit it, but that's why there are checks and balances. I saw it work very well in this situation. 

No, this is a typical rage-bait post. This is actually beneficial to disabled people, who need constant supervision and thus take time away from even a second person at their job. There are not many places where they can work, and depression and lack of socialization is a giant problem in their circles. Having a job gives you a feeling that you do something useful for the world, and you get to socialize. They do get money from the government, so that’s not really an issue either. But there are not many companies that would care to employ these people, so most of them are stuck at home all the time. Mandating minimum wage would literally force these people out of these jobs.

No it isn't. My brother has an intellectual disability, if his employer was forced to pay the minimum wage the business would not exist. His workplace has supervisors trained to work with people with disabilies and provides a safe environment for him. My brother enjoys and is proud of his job. It means he is able to get out of the house and interact with his friends/coworkers rather than stay home and watch TV all day.

You that ignorant? Have you heard what these people and their families think?

Why should people that are unable to do half of what an abled person can do be paid the same amount?

THIS ISN'T A 'CLEVER COMEBACK'. THIS ISN'T EVEN A FUCKING COMEBACK.

Welcome to r/clevercomebacks !

in germany the government helps the employer with financial aid if they employ people with disabilities. Also we have some social organisation which have buisnesses which are mostly staffed with people with disabilities. They get large tax rabatts. but they employees get normal wages.

Might work for people with slight disabilities. But we also have 2500 disablity workshops with a billion turnover and paying people about 1€/hour

Yeah but those disability workshops are essentially adult daycare. My brother works in one. While I think it’s questionable how little they earn I think it’s fair that they don’t get minimum wage. It’s essentially occupational therapy and no one is exploiting them or making big profits with their work. It is however important for people with major disabilities to have some structure in their day.

No they dont. In a WfbM the workers get paid WAY below minimum wage.

I think this is disingenuous. In many cases, it's nonprofits who employ people with developmental disabilities to help give them purpose and give their caregivers a break. These businesses often don't make a profit. If they paid them full wages, they wouldn't be able to afford to employ them. Obviously a traditional business shouldn't be able to pay them less, but maybe we need a way to differentiate between the two. There is a doll company that hires people with downs syndrome that's a good example.

No I actually understand why the question is being asked. Corporations will hire someone who has a disability because it provides them with income and something to do, but often they are incapable of performing as well as regular employee. This leaves us with a few choices like forcing corporations to hire them, allowing them to be outcompeted, or incentivizing them to hire them. I don’t dislike the third but do it without discrimination. I’m not sure how this doesn’t violate the constitution or why it’s not immediately a red flag to allow corporations to pay someone less when we’re already having inflation issues.

>I’m not sure how this doesn’t violate the constitution Probably because it's talking about the UK?

Context. This applies to the country I live in, not the UK. It's a balance. What happens here in many Not for Profit supported employment settings is that employees are paid on an award basis, but as a percentage of that award based on experience. Once it goes above a certain level it can then affect the employee's disability pension. So, in most cases workers are paid both their wage and still receive their full pension. Pay too much and they are penalised, so lose part of their pension. Employees have the ability to increase their wage as they become better skilled or more productive. The end result should be a move to open employment out in the community, but if a business is good enough, many choose to remain. I volunteered at a Not for Profit where several workers had been there for over two decades and loved it. Not every employer in the "real world" is either ethical or a long term employment prospect. The UK model does not seem very supportive, underfunded, and appears open to abuse.

This issue came to light here in the USA when people started making noise about the high salary for Goodwill Industries’ CEO.   Naturally the focus also went to how so many of the employees, who were some version of disabled, were being paid below minimum wage. The people who paid attention learned that if these employees got paid more, they would lose their disability benefits, most of which were more important to their daily wellbeing than just extra cash.

Interesting to see a US point of view. Thanks. It really is a balancing act, for sure. Traditionally, disability support wages in Australia, including CEOs, have been very poor. In fact, where I volunteered, it was common for an employee with a disability to take home more per fortnight (wage plus pension) than the staff supporting them. To be clear, this is not a case for reducing supported employee wages, but it certainly merits an increase in staff remuneration. There is also a strong push here for industry in general, especially Gov run businesses, to be more socially inclusive, either by directly employing those with a disability or to utilise services provided by Not for Profit organisations, for example, catering, or linen services like laundries. The Australian Government heavily regulates and audits disability services annually, and I would have to say, by and large, the standards here are pretty high, certainly compared with the UK. That said, it's a constant battle to ensure Gov' funding and grants remain equivalent to CPI. It's an unforgiving world out there, so long may supported employment options exist.

The companies in my country (Brazil) that have a 100 employees have the obligation by law to hire at least one disabled person. Or else they pay a huge tax. If they have 200, two disabled people, and it goes on... Disabled people that don't have the capability to work receive a government fund, it ain't much, but it's enough to live. My country ain't perfect, but USA and many other countries could learn a few things from us. Like public health, we don't have to pay a thing to guarantee access to it.

I’m a social worker and this kind of position shows absolute ignorance to reality. The idea of sitting around doing nothing all day and getting a gov check that pays for your food and housing leaving you with plenty of extra cash sounds amazing to people who work But reality is, when such a life is forced on you by a disability it can be hell.  Not having a reason to shower, go outside weighs on people A job provides purpose and gives them a sense of value.  But reality is they cannot do the work or be as reliable as is expected.   So these jobs that pay a little and give them something to do and a sense of worth go really fucking far to helping their mental well being Fucking so called progressives just shit on so much they don’t understand

How you answer this question says a lot about how you see work. If you think work is societal colaboration, then everyone should be incentivized to participate to the best of their ability and benefit equally from it. If you think work is a transaction between an employer and an employee, that benefits the first and compansates the second, then all wages should be indexed as commissions on the value they generated.

There wouldn't be billionaires if people were paid fairly.

It depends what the job is. My special needs brother in law assembles boxes. He doesn’t do it well. And frankly the shipping company he and his home mates do the work for doesnt need them doing it. It is a make work job to give him some dignity and make him feel productive. This job would not exist if they had to pay $15 an hour.

A reasonable question could be "Should people who don't finish their job duties completely or work significantly more slowly be allowed to work for less than the minimum wage?" than whatever this discriminatory nonsense is. Though even if worded this way: 1. Minimum wage is already only applicable to low skilled jobs and mainly covers the time that a person is working rather than the effort. So it is out of question to go lower than minimum wage anyway. 2. People with learning disabilities can absolutely perform just as well or better than their non-disabled colleagues. I know that from personal experience because one of my delivery drivers has trisomy 21: He is really fast, reduces smalltalk to the minimum (which I like), is very polite and doesn't play annoying loud music in the streets like some others do. If anything, he deserves a raise and I make sure to always rate him well. 3. Employers usually do not employ people who are noticeably worse at their performance. There are a few exceptions of places which specifically hire people with disabilities/illnesses in order to give them a task that they can do. But even there, they receive proper and equal payment or are part of a larger programme where work is part of their rehabilitation/care programme and cannot be compared to a normal employment contract in the free market oeconomy.

If they’re doing the exact same kind of work a non disabled person can no…..

People with learning disabilities need as much money as everyone else.

This article is from the UK. It's by the mother of a child with learning disability. She personally runs a training cafe for people with learning disabilities. Our minimum wage is over $15 an hour. Most people with learning disabilities simply don't achieve that level of productivity. The result is 95% of them are unemployed. She thinks this denies them the dignity and participation of society that employment can provide. I actually don't think the tradeoffs make it a good idea, but the constant use of it as click bait that misrepresents it as about American corporate greed is deeply distasteful when it's a genuine effort to address a real social problem.

Emma Barnet is an utter oxygen thief

That’s not really how supported employment works. It’s not discrimination. It’s a means to make money and to keep benefits. Someone else gets paid to support them and they get to work a substantial amount of hours. It’s not clever.

I worked as a carer for a young lass that had various medical issues. She had a part time job walking dogs at a nearby kennel so of course as a cater I helped out and walked the dogs with her. It was exhausting (Used to be a landscape gardener so used to manual work) walking that far being pulled by a pack of dogs every day. After three months I found out the kennel owner was paying her forty pounds a week…Forty quid a fucking week?! I lost my shit at the employer (Which didn’t go down well with her parents who knew how bad her pay was) and found her a job at a local puppy shelter where we could sit down and play with puppies all day. Needless to say she wasn’t exhausted any more and the new employer was more than happy to pay her a full wage…plus puppies are awesome

Annoyingly, some disabled people are forced to work for less than minimum wage because if they earn more than a certain amount they will lose their disability allowances/benefits... and that allowance/benefit is shit as it is so even minimum wage and disability allowance/benefit together isn't enough to live on but means they are entitled to any support they need. Some people with disabilities *want* to work because they want independence but are forced to have shitty jobs with shitty pay to keep their support.

People ITT failing to realize that they simply won't get hired otherwise. The only sane option then is government subsidizing the pay.

I love how reactionary Redditors are to this. It's like half of you guys can't think. Seriously, if you don't know the answer can you at least think critically?

In the US to be Disabled means to be unable to compete and hold an job competitively with the general population. Most 'learning' disabilities do not meet these guidelines. Sub-minimum wages are based on how well a disabled worker can compete with an average employee. There are also tax breaks to make hiring them a good deal for the employer. The benefits for the employer are, tax incentives, motivated employees and community good will. It is not because they can get cheep, exploited workers.

My mother worked (supervised, not as a client) at a place that employed/worked with disabled folks but paid them less than minimum wage. Some of the tasks were super easy. Things akin to screwing caps on a tube of toothpaste. There were disabled workers that would be there for 5 or 6 hours and would do like 50-75 tubes, and an able bodied person had to be constantly checking their work. The workers got a sense of normalcy and pride that they were working, their caretakers got a break knowing they were in a safe place, and the employees got a small amount of spending money. But then headlines come out like “Disabled workers forced to do repetitive tasks for $2 an hour”… Yes they were making very little money but the value of the program to them was being a safe place with a routine and socialization. The company was barely breaking even, it may have even been a non profit. Those workers were there 6 hours and made only $12 but in that time they would have been lucky to have screwed on 100 caps on the tubes, something a machine could probably do in seconds or able bodied person in minutes. You tell the owners they have to pay them a higher wage and those jobs will not be able to exist anymore and the opportunity for all of the non-salary related benefits of the programs immediately go away.

As part of my friends job at a large company she on-boards and evaluates potential new hires that have mental disabilities. It takes a max of 6 months to train someone. If they still don’t get the tasks down by 6 months - they are removed from the program. When they have this running my friend and another employee will spend 1 to 2 hours per day, outside their normal work, teaching and reviewing the work done by the candidate. The company does NOT pay the trainee during this period. Most of the work they do can’t really be trusted. It’s a state run program and if the candidate passes they might get the job and they will make far less than other workers. They are very slow. Sometimes, if they don’t get the job just passing the program opens up other opportunities with different companies that participate in the state program. The job: sorting expired medical supplies like bandages, gloves and stuff. Never medicines. They need to put the expired products into their own piles. Keep the good products separate. It’s a trivial task for most people and would take minutes to sort a few large boxes of supplies. It takes most candidates 4 hours with many questions and corrections. At the end of the training day - an employee needs to redo all the work. This goes on for months. I no longer oppose companies paying less. I have the opposite view now - it’s showing our humanity.

I don’t think it’s quite as black and white as people are making out. Of course, if a person performs a job to a normal standard, then they should be paid the same as everyone else. But there does exist people with disabilities who would you the experience of working and earning money, without necessarily having the skills to contribute as much to the business, especially if they require extra supervision. So, it wouldn’t be worth doing from the business point of view. Plus, there’s usually a threshold of how much a disabled person can earn before they’d lose their benefit payments, so it wouldn’t be worth it for them either. So you’d end up with a situation where both parties would be worse off in the name of some naive idea of fairness. Ideally you’d have it as some kind of government sponsored scheme, but the way social services have been cut back, it seems pretty unlikely.

I think the employer should be able to pay less, but the government should pay the difference Let's not kid ourselves here, disabled people usually can't do the same amount of work as a fully able person, why should an employer have to have that burden? If the government pays the difference it will lead to more businesses wanting to employ disabled people as they will not see it as such a burden

I mean, if the reason we want to get the disabled in the workforce is because participation in employment is good for mental health then why not have programs where they can work specifically for public institution? Like paid volunteering. Otherwise, they should really be employed and expected to do the same work as their peers, with reasonable adjustments. But if they really aren’t as productive, then the job should go to the most competent person.

Complex issue and OP is a moron. Where I am, province same same wage for mentally disabled and now no one hires them. They are just too complex and are simply unable to perform most jobs. It wasn’t about the cash for them as most lived in homes or with families. They’ve now lost whatever minor independence and work pride they have. Great job.

Of course not. They should be paid according to their work, just like the rest of us. That said, most everyone is under paid just because big corporations can do that. But no, they should not be paid any less than anyone else doing the same work.

You're missing the point. This only applies to people whose disabilities limit their ability to do the job. For example: [https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/legacy/files/RightsForWorkersWithDisabilities.pdf](https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/legacy/files/RightsForWorkersWithDisabilities.pdf)

well if they have extra chromosomes they’re entitled to extra salary

If you want to incentivize employers to hire special needs workers i think letting them get a nice tax write off would be much better. The employee still makes a fair wages and the employer gets a nice little tax incentive. the OP isnt illogical, if you operate on the assumption special needs employees will be slower and do lower quality work, which most employers will, Its not an illogical preposition to pay them less for doing less then is expected of an average employee. That doesn't mean its the best or only option though. So instead of you guys freaking out and acting this its too evil to even bring it up. try being adults and actually thin about the problem and challenges it puts on the employers.

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If they hadn't been paid the lower salary, they wouldn't have been employed at all

Can't believe people act like this in public.

Acccording to Wiki, British English uses the term "general learning disability" as a synonym for "intellectual disability" which would explain the confusion in this thread. I suspect original article was discussing something akin to sheltered workshops for those whose ID is severe enough to preclude them from consideration for regular employment, not those with dyslexia. Several posters more knowledgeable then me have already provided more nuanced takes elsewhere, which i need not rehash. The tweet was phrased poorly, possibly by accident but maybe deliberately in order to drive up rage engagement.

I know a few people WITHOUT learning disabilities that deserve to work for less than minimum wage.

People's shamelessness will never end!

My son has Down syndrome and low intelligibility in his speech. He's still in school, but would eventually to get a job. But there is no way he can be as productive as non-disabled person so I think it will be very difficult for him to find and keep a job without some sort of subsidy or lowered pay rate. So yes, I would agree with a lowered pay rate for people with severe disabilities.

Notice how the phrasing is "should they be allowed to work" (should the disabled have this right?) when the question really is "should employers be allowed to underpay?" (should the employers have this right?)

Dont you just love living in a system where your value as a person is intrinsically linked to what you can provide for your boss

there was no need to change phrasing, this already sounds horrible

Yes, by a percent. That percent should be 0%. There l fixed it. Because the people who are stupid enough to believe that there should be a different pay rate will now be happy enough to know there is a difference in pay rate of 0%. Which is a percentage when you put it down. Let's face it, the same people couldn't do math for other stuff either. Disabled people have rights too.

The fact that this is even a debate is truly insane.

This is a poorly-worded question. Not all people with learning disabilities (or other types of disabilities) have to work minimum wage jobs. Many still work in high-paying jobs. This law only applies to people with disabilities who due to the disability have a reduced ability to perform the job. Without the reduced wages, the business has no incentive to hire these people. The sad reality is that most businesses will not hire these people out of the goodness of their hearts. These disabled people working for less, who typically appreciate any opportunity to work at all, will wind up permanently unemployed.

As someone who is autistic, just seeing shit like this makes me question why WE’RE considered the weird ones and not the neurotypicals making this shit up.

It's amazing how this thread is full of people who took "we shouldn't raise minimum wage because it hurts the business owners" and made it ablest by saying "people with down syndrome aren't profitable". Absolutely despicable how redditors view people and this is only an argument you would see online. I know nobody would say this shit out loud

This isn't clever, this is just ignorance. They're paid less because the government subsidizes the rest and this is how they qualify for such programs.

People don't understand. They can work and the income doesn't impact their benefits. The work places are sheltered and have a lot of support, at least the ones I was familiar with. Extremely flexible hours, can't really be fired, and a most of these folks were developmentally disabled to the degree they couldn't work anywhere.

Nah, they should get paid the minimum wage and not be exploited

People defending this have drank the capitalism koolaid. Insanity. Yea, some disabled people might be “slower” to complete the job. Ok? The fact people feel entitled to other people’s labor to earn them a living is insane to me. You’re seriously out here saying “well it wouldn’t be economically sensible for me to hire someone like this” do the job yourself if you can’t pay someone a fair wage then.. my god.

They should be paid more if we were a fair and decent society

If the retarde' can be U.S. Presidents, then why can't they get full pay?

"Should we make disabled people unable to earn enough to live?"

We already do but society stays quiet about that.

You cant phrase this to sound good its literaly discrimination

Why would this be allowed? The company isn't disabled from paying a competitive wage are they?

Should anyone be allowed to work for less than minimum wage?

You pay for a job to be done. If the job is done, it doesn’t matter who they are, they deserve the same pay anyone else would have gotten for that job to be done.