A new law aims to ensure workers with disabilities earn at least minimum wage. But some worry there aren’t enough resources to help these workers compete for jobs.
At a warehouse tucked into a suburban Bay Area office park, along white folding tables lined up like an assembly line, about 50 people on a March morning snapped together plastic pieces of bicycle safety mirrors or stuffed envelopes with a nonprofit’s donor letters.The laborers are all adults who have intellectual or developmental disabilities, performing jobs under contract for local businesses and nonprofits.
John Bolle, VistAbility’s executive director, said when his workshop is required to pay minimum wage, some of the faster workers may be able keep working. But he doubts local businesses and nonprofits will pay more expensive contracts to accommodate higher wages, and he predicted those with the most significant disabilities likely will lose their jobs.At VistAbility some workers said they liked the company of coworkers, the steady tasks and guaranteed weekday hours.
On the other side, program operators and some workers’ families defend the current arrangements, saying these workers would not otherwise have job opportunities.of people who have developmental disabilities in California are employed, the state’s Department of Developmental Services says. The Department of Developmental Services, which pays for these services, says it is ramping up funding so providers of job placement services can get those currently working for less than minimum wage into “competitive integrated employment” — that is, working for at least minimum wage alongside coworkers who don’t have disabilities.
Paying people with disabilities less than the minimum wage is legal because of a New Deal-era section of federal labor law called “14c,” designed to help wounded World War I veterans get limited access to jobs. Californians with disabilities have a constitutional right to services that allow them to live as independently as possible. If they seek employment help, state regional disabilities centers can refer them to 14c programs or to other employment options.
When he was 21, a state regional center referred him to a sheltered workshop in the Sacramento area for employment training. At the workshop Pugliese assembled electronics alongside other workers with disabilities, cordoned off from other workers. These kinds of jobs have already declined in California. In 2009, as many as 16,000 people with disabilities worked in the workshops or the small groups that split a minimum wage. By 2021, employment in those programs had fallen to about 6,000, state officials said.
VistAbility worker Jennifer Painter assembles mirrors for bicycle helmets into plastic packaging on April 27, 2023. Photo by Shelby Knowles for CalMatters In high school Cory Bowers went to classes with a group of other students with disabilities. After they graduated, Goodwill of Orange County placed him, with two or three others, at a clothing company’s warehouse and later at a local retailer. They hung clothes on racks, splitting one minimum-wage job.
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