To some disability advocates and disabled people themselves, it feels like disabled people have been abandoned to fend for themselves. And in places like Utah — where major legislation that would increase disabled people’s quality of life continues to be struck down — that’s palpable.
During Utah’s legislative session in January, House Bill 205, the proposal to require Utah employers to pay disabled workers more, was struck down. The bill would have gradually phased out employers’ ability to pay less than the minimum wage (currently $7.25 in Utah) to workers with disabilities over two years. Nine employers in Utah currently utilize the exemption to pay subminimum wages to disabled workers. State Rep. Brett Garner, who introduced the bill, says there are roughly 544 employees being paid subminimum wage. But disability advocates in the state say even one is too many. Nate Crippes, the public affairs supervising attorney at the Disability Law Center of Utah, says advocates aim to continue the conversation to educate legislators on the issue in hopes of moving them.
This is just one of the latest developments in America’s consistent devaluing of disabled workers, for whom discrimination and poor treatment are common. Nationwide, companies from Amazon to Walmart have been accused of creating unsafe work environments for disabled people or keeping them out of work entirely. And with more people becoming disabled due to long COVID in this ongoing pandemic, the issue of discrimination against disabled people becomes more dire.
I'm not defending the practice by any means, but there are exceptions when an employer can make an argument that the employee's disability affects their ability to work. The argument of course being that at a certain level of disability, even employing them at minimum wage is uneconomical so it's better to not require a minimum wage. More here.
Yes, looks like the tax code provides a tax credit along a sliding scale.
With that argument, any employer can pay any employee less than minimum wage by arguing that they don't do "minimum wage work." The point of minimum wage is that subminimum-wage jobs should not exist at all.
No, there are specific qualifying disabilities, and just because someone has one of the listed disabilities doesn't mean they're automatically getting sub minimum wage. So cerebral palsy is a qualifying disability, but a software developer whose work is not meaningfully affected would not be eligible (not that software developers usually earn minimum wage to begin with). Likewise just because someone has a disability that could affect their work doesn't mean that it rises to the level of a qualifying disability.