With the economy nosediving, more people are keeping close tabs on policies at every level of government – especially policies that affect the household pocket book. Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you have at least heard about the “Occupy” movement and the “99 percent,” who hope(d) to unite the lower, working and middle classes around the claim that a disproportionate amount of the wealth is in the hands of the wealthiest one percent. Even so, there has been a lack of conversation about the legal exceptions to minimum wage. Have you heard of “Special Minimum Wage”?
Many states allow businesses to pay “tipped” employees less than the federal minimum wage. Some states allow a “training wage” that is below minimum wage, for employees – like teenagers – who have limited experience. Oregon does not allow either of these practices. (Though former Republican gubernatorial candidate and Trail Blazin’ bricklayer Chris Dudley proposed one in his campaign.)
However, not all workers in Oregon make at least $8.50 an hour. The piece-rate for seasonal farmworkers allows for employees to make below minimum wage in Oregon (and other places), but that is a topic that has received more attention than Special Minimum Wage, often within the ongoing U.S. immigration policy debate. What many people are not aware of, however, is that workers who are considered disabled by the United States government, and who work at community rehabilitation centers, hospitals, residential care facilities, in school work-experience programs, and at private businesses that have successfully submitted an application to hire disabled employees with barriers to employment at “Special Minimum Wage” rates can make (far) less than minimum wage.
In the “U.S. Department of Labor’s Application for Authority to Employ Workers with Disabilities at Special Minimum Wages,” the U.S. government lists the primary disability groups as: mental retardation, mental illness, visual impairment, hearing impairment, alcoholism, drug addictions, neuromuscular, developmental disability, and age-related, showing the broad population included under this policy.
“Special Minimum Wage” is not a set rate. It is generally calculated either based upon the productivity of the disabled employee in a timed test compared with a sample of non-disabled employees’ tests, or by a piece-rate that is determined by non-disabled employees’ tests. The productivity is then calculated against the prevailing wage to determine the special minimum wage. For example, if a disabled worker in a Special Minimum Wage program has 20 percent the productivity of the non-disabled workers’ timed test, and the prevailing wage is $8.50 per hour, the disabled worker would make $1.70 per hour.
It is important to note that some employees working for Special Minimum Wages can make more than minimum wage in some cases. Also, for a disabled employee to be paid a special minimum wage rate, and not minimum wage, the productivity has to be easily quantifiable, meaning it cannot be a job like janitorial work, where efficiency is impossible to determine fairly.
A glaring problem with Special Minimum Wage is the way rates are calculated. Depending on what non-disabled employees are chosen for the timed test to determine the standard productivity rate of the task, the results could vary greatly. An employee who has two months of experience on a task may have significantly different results than an employee that has two years – or twenty years – of experience. Also, an employee is generally going to be working their hardest when being timed by their supervisors, and thus may not give an accurate depiction of how fast they work on a daily basis. Also: What is the prevailing wage of the job? Is it the base salary (often minimum wage)? The average wage of the employees that were tested?
In a July 2006 blog post for OregonLive.com, Oregonian reporters Jeff Kosseff and Bryan Denson stated that many of the employees working for Special Minimum Wages “earn only a few cents an hour.” Kosseff and Denson’s piece outlined how many agencies end up paying disabled employees too little (by U.S. Department of Labor standards) because of unfair piece-rates and efficiency expectations, and highlighted cases where agencies were ordered to pay back-wages. However, Kosseff and Denson warned that federal government oversight is minimal, and that many unfair practices related to Special Minimum Wage likely go unnoticed.
Proponents of Special Minimum Wage say that the policy allows people who would otherwise be unemployed to find employment, and encourages businesses to hire disabled employees, and non-profits and local government agencies to create programs for disabled workers. Some argue that for many disabled workers, being employed under the Fair Labor Standards Act as a Special Minimum Wage employee is just a stepping stone to receiving a minimum wage position. A minority of uber-advocates for Special Minimum Wage-related practices would have you believe that piece-rate and similar wage calculation methods are more fair than our current wage system for non-disabled employees in positions that could realistically be paid by a piece-rate.
While it is hard to argue against the idea that the disabled workforce has a higher employment rate now than if disabled workers were required to be paid minimum wage without exception, the current system allows for extremely low wages that do not always cover the gap between what social security provides and the minimum amount of money a person needs to survive. Some workers in our state (and our country) are trying to live off a total allowance of $800 or less a month. It also is naive to believe that all of these people will eventually receive employment outside of a Special Minimum Wage program. If it is not practical to abolish Special Minimum Wage and maintain the same vocational services, than should policies be changed to cap how low Special Minimum Wage can go?
