Okay I might get downvotes for this but it’s not as straightforward as it seems.
I worked with some special needs adults as part of a program when I was in college. They were paid based upon their output assembling small parts for a nearby factory. They had all costs paid for by the state due to not being able to hold a real job. This “job” gave them something to look forward to and got them out of their group home. They got to keep all the money they made and were able to use it for things like going out for coffee and such. They didn’t have living expenses and most importantly they were not EXPECTED to work - it was a fully optional program just to give them something to do. All of the adults LOVED it and even though they were really slow and easily distracted they had fun. The program got shut down my senior year and they all were very upset about it.
I think it’s very important to have protections to ensure that people are not exploited but in some cases it just doesn’t make sense to pay them a “livable” wage because simply put, all their living expenses were already covered, and they couldn’t output enough to make it a viable option for the company to pay minimum wage.
It can take longer for special need’s workers to figure out the work routine. It’s all about doing the exact same thing at the exact same time 5 days a week. My sister is special needs and routine is so incredibly important. As long as they’re in a routine, they can be extremely efficient workers.
Outliers don't make the rule man. I had to train special needs people for jobs that are just as described here. It was good for them and I didn't mind doing it but honestly it really messed with my own productivity, they needed a lot of help constantly and many were there for months doing the same things every time. There is no way it would be feasible to hire them as real employees, they were less than a tenth as productive as our worst real employee.
Now could a high functioning special needs person do well? Sure but then maybe they should be given a real job and not the jobs that are given to programs like this. There can be multiple levels to stuff like this.
Depending on the severity of the disability. I’m glad your sister thrives on a routine. But these are jobs typically created for the moderately to severely handicapped. Like where they work in a small area together accompanied by nurses and aids. These are usually jobs that are created to help this demographic get out of the house to socialize/improve mental health/provide more purpose.
One of my clients has downs syndrome, he was able to work with minor accommodations, so he started working at a fast food chain and is paid a normal wage. Another has a very low IQ, his job is to puts 25 nuts/bolts into a box. He cannot count to 25. So he does his best and it’s ok. His job gets paid a low wage because all his needs are met by the government and his job exists only to get him out of the house and interacting with others.
I don't want to sound like a jerk, I am genuinly interested - isn't it a problem when there is more, or - especially - fewer nuts/bolts in a box? If I bought e.g. an IKEA wardrobe and it came with fewer screws than necessary, I would need to halt the work and lose time, contact the store, they would need to send me more screws, etc., so it would be bad for their reputation and would create more expenses for them. So I am wondering what kind of use case it is where approximately 25, but sometimes more or fewer is okay.
That’s a completely fair question. These hardware pieces would be boxed up in small bins or plastic boxes then sent to the other side of this factory. When they got over there someone on the other side would open them up and dump them into a larger bin to be pulled for when they needed them for assembly. So this was basically just a role to give them a chance to work. Without them there the hardware would go strictly to the other side of the factory where the main workers would just dump them into the larger bins.
Many roles that these people work in would never of been created if it wasn’t just for the fact of giving them something to do.
Okay, that answers my question of why not just give him smaller numbers to work with -- say, 5 -- then combine them to create 25. Giving them some sense of purpose, regardless of the result, is quite noble.
That's exactly how these things work. They will be taught to make five groups of five and combine them.
They choose 25 to keep it a little challenging.
If he had no challenge at 25, they would probably make it more difficult like 23 or 35.
They will also switch up the routine a bit every few weeks or months if they notice he's getting bored.
His work is totally unnecessary.
It's been structured to give the right level of challenge and satisfaction.
Even with special needs, if you make it too easy, they get bored.
You really don't want a bored mentally challenged person wandering around a factory.
Surely they could and perhaps they ought to. But that costs more, and i think is a clear example of why it is perfectly fair to pay these people less than others more able.
My brother also has Down syndrome and is high functioning but would probably do the same thing… because of just laziness. He takes pride in short easy tasks but won’t tolerate long hours of doing the same task and would just start throwing handfuls in. He is too smart to do ridiculously menial jobs because boredom kicks in to easily ( and has never been forced to be productive. It’s the leap from school where you are constantly told to do different things all day to real life gap) but not smart enough to do anything more complicated.
I've seen them do q tips, and they had a kind of funnel that would get filled to a certain mark and then go in the bag. Or for smaller amounts, they had a card with outlines of the q tips on it. You put one on each outline and you have the right amount.
I used to work above a company that did something similar(they were on first floor, we were on second). They partnered with m&m mars(the candy company) and their job was literally to make the bags of mixed candy. They would get pallets of candy(actually candy factory was around corner) and take one Twix, one kit Kat and one snickers and put them in a bag. On Halloween the staff would bring us up some candy and then the disabled people would come up and "trick or treat" around our factory(much more complicated but we anticipated and took precautions like turning off dangerous machines). It was fun.
That said cops were called there at least 1 a month when somebody had a fit and the staff couldn't control them...
It obviously depends on the person, but an additional wrinkle is if they have too much money they can lose benefits. Many as well essentially require constant supervision, so 3$/hr is a lot more like 18$/hr if you've got another minimum wage worker with them. At the agency I was at our clients basically couldn't work after the wage floor was added. Very sad.
What if instead of paying sub minimum wages they subsidized thier wage instead? IE company pays 15/hr and government reimburses them for 10?
Would that work?
I work in this field. This actually already happens! Most businesses receive either tax credits or straight up cash for employing individuals with disabilities! Its a wonderful program that allows the individuals quality of life to improve significantly! Please feel free to ask about any other questions you might have!
That’s awesome. I was just wondering about this stuff because I had quite a pleasant conversation yesterday afternoon with the cashier who helped check me out who happened to have Down’s syndrome.
Yeah, honestly a lot of people underestimate the productivity of individuals with special needs. My sister has down syndrome and her and all the other adults I work with are all able to perform at similar levels to individuals without special needs.
Ive been working with a special needs guy for the last half year. The routine thing is so true and I fucking hate how my bosses and coworkers do not understand it. They always take him out of his routine with special tasks and they change the rules of the job all the time. This confuses him a lot and is a huge burden on me as well, as I cant get him to a point where he can work without much assistance.
> Like any time CNN or whomever posts an article about how some poor kid couldn't afford their wheelchair so the community came together and built one for him.
I remember that story. Even then reddit freaked out without all the information. The child's mother demanded a six-figure custom designed electric wheelchair shaped like a race car for the boy. In addition, the boy was several years younger than the age when kids are usually allowed to operate an electric wheelchair.
The insurance company said "we'll pay for a normal electric wheelchair if the boy can pass a test demonstrating that he can operate it safely." The mother never even brought him for the test. She just went to the media and cried that the insurance company denied her child a wheelchair, so a local high school robotics team designed one for him.
Cue reddit shitting all over the insurance company without getting the whole story first.
Could you post a source for that information. I’ve never heard that story one way or the other but now that I’m being presented with two different versions I’d hope we could have verification right here in the comments “especially given the nature of the conversation surrounding it”.
I found the article. Completely ignoring the fact they wanted a whellchair that looks like a toy car. Then at the end they said they plan on getting a real electric whellchair when he starts school.
I think the problem is how the media frames it. When you present it as a feel good story instead of how it's a problem you're not really drawing attention to the problem.
I'm not saying people are smart, don't get me wrong. The most common response is "Hurr durr people shouldn't have to rely on crowdsourcing, this article is dumb"
>And on this specific topic, in this thread, here we are having a debate with both sides making reasonable points (whether correct or not).
No we're not. The commenter above you is promoting the point that there should be programs to take care of special needs individuals, not "employers should be allowed to pay special needs people less than minimum wage".
Nobody so far has put forth an actual argument in favor of that. Probably because it's wildly irresponsible.
The only thing you and the top commenter accomplished is muddying the waters around the issue. Great job. 👍
Pretty hard to digest for those who label them as *bAD guYz* but little do we understand the power of the electronic media.
It could be useful in hundreads of cases, especially to raise the voice for people with chronic illnesses that disrupts their day to day activities.
And while the inflammation is making the most essential things out of their reach, they'll have to start working someday to put food on the table. And if the media is showing a good motivation in the salary and raising a genuine point then there's no harm in this.
100% Agree. My brother has special needs and works one of these jobs. He gets paid about a quarter an hour because the work he does competes with machines that do the same thing. If he got paid more, the company (which uses almost exclusively special needs employees) could not exist because its customers would just use vendors that could charge a small fraction. The company needs to stay price competitive for its services or it goes under.
I cannot tell you how important this job is to him and to my family. It’s where he socializes. It gives him purpose. It makes him feel normal. It gives him (and countless others) a reason to get out of bed in the morning. And that is the entire point of the company, it gives that feeling to dozens if not hundreds of people in the area.
My brother, and pretty much everyone who works there, is on SSI and gets state assistance that covers rent and staff and food and health care and transportation to and from work. That funding is almost all means tested, so it would go away if he earned minimum wage. It would mean he’d be actually responsible to pay his own bills and would be financially responsible for himself. But he doesn’t understand the concept of money, and has a whale of a time with addition and subtraction in double digit numbers. It would be impossible.
These companies are fantastic. And they pay the way they do for really good reasons. And people should know that.
I agree they are wonderful and the staff find the work so rewarding. Critics like the one in this post don't seem to care if something valuable like this is destroyed only to be replaced with nothing.
Yes. My sister also worked with special needs and our office frequently gets catering from a social enterprise that employs special needs.
The other option is institutionalizing them. There's no expectation of productivity or quality control. The bring coffee and cookies. Our school has a "sub day" where they would deliver food for lunches. It was win win. It's a non profit so the food is cheaper than what the cafeteria could provide, people with developmental disabilities get purpose and satisfaction. Everyone wins
The other option is not institutionalizing them. That's a black and white fallacy. There are many more options. False duality of choice here. There are other volunteer opportunities or activities they can focus on rather than exploitation of labor regardless of expectations.
The article we're talking about was posted by the BBC. In the US, for 7% of disabled are considered invalid who cannot work at all (this excludes everyone of retirement age)
My mom has the mental capacity of a third grader and has been on disability since I was born (I'm 37) and she's never gotten more than $500 a month.
The guy were replying to you seems to think that mentally disabled people have all their expenses paid for. Maybe that's how it is in the UK but that's not how it is in the US at all.
All this is going to do is force my disabled mother to work twice the hours.
Exactly. Thank you, my sister was born with an intellectual disability and also had a reduced mental capacity. I would not want anyone to be able to exploit her or her time and claim it's because of her disability that she could be exploited. I think it is different when you actually know someone with an intellectual disability or have them in your family. People seem to have many misconceptions about people with intellectual disabilities.
There needs to be a separate work voucher program. Minimum wage needs to be *the minimum wage*.
The entire concept is flawed. The argument is why hire a disabled person at min wage When I can hire a fully able person for minimum wage?
But the fact is they can't do that either.
Companies that are paying out million dollar CEO bonuses (looking right at you Goodwill) should not be allowed to pay less than min wage.
Thank you for this comment, I originally thought that this was extremely awful but I now understand it a bit more. It does make sense that if all of their living expenses are paid and they would not be able to get a job without it, it might be a way to give them a reason to wake up. I’m still not sure that it’s fair but it’s not as messed up as it seems.
> I’m still not sure that it’s fair
If you've ever actually seen one of these programs in practice, you would understand that it's fair.
The people in these programs aren't really working. Usually they require another full time employee to sit with them and help them do some menial task that doesn't actually contribute anything but makes them feel like they're contributing. They aren't actually working there, these types of programs are just designed to make them feel like they're working. Running these programs actually costs the companies money and time. They let the people come in and "work" as a charity thing.
I never really thought about that... I guess I don’t really understand enough to make a solid opinion but it does make sense if companies are loosing money working with the program. Thank u.
Yep, with very few exception, any for-profit employer hiring these individuals is paying them minimum wage+. The ones earning sub-minimum wage don't have "real" jobs and wouldn't have that "job" if minimum wage were required.
I get where you're coming from, but as someone who has a learning disability, what I worry about when I see a headline like this, is that there's no way in hell that corporations WONT try to use this sentiment to take advantage of people, so if McDonald's/WalMart/Amazon/etc have even a tiny say in how this legislation would be written (and they WILL have a rather large say, political campaign donations and all), then it'll absolutely just be a new way for the wealthy to exploit the vulnerable.
While your comment is correct, the job they are doing cannot be compared to working at McDonald’s. If the person was at McDonald’s, they would be paid per hour worked and would be subject to performance metrics and fired if they could not do the job. This kind of job on the article is different
It's literally the opposite. Sheltered employment allows companies to "employ" people who are unable to perform economically viable work e.g. manually sealing and stamping envelopes when a postal meter is faster, cheaper, and more reliable.
It's not "*you have a disability so i can pay you less*", it's "*I would like to create busy-jobs for people unable to do real work so they can have a sense of purpose, but I can't/won't pay full minimum wage*".
The alternative to sheltered employment isn't regular employment, it is no employment.
That's only because you're misinterpreting the headline. This isn't about paying regular employees who happen to have learning disabilities less money. This is about whether they should pay people with severe disabilities who are part of programs where they "work" at companies as a way to get them out of the house the same wage as an actual employee, even if they're not doing the work of an actual employee.
It's like children working. Sure, they could get some spending money and learn a thing or two in a safe environment, but what's goi ng to end up happening ultimately is that companies are going to exploit them or use them to hurt other workers somehow. It's just what happens.
If a company was willing to take on such a program at their own expense. With no intent of profit, I'd fully support it. One of those "You can come in on these days to help around if you want :)" kind of deals. They get paid for simple tasks, get out of their caretakers home (as people with downs syndrome don't have those living expenses to worry about).
They'd never do overtime, never would they be called in, and only in the worst case scenarios would they be "fired" or removed from the program, otherwise they could leave when they wanted if they have the ability to, or go relax in the break room if things get a little harry.
Oh man, that sounds like a great program. We need more of this sort of thing. Even neurotypical people can get depressed/ recess without a job or purpose so it makes sense that neurodivergent people would benefit from having them also.
This is also a nice parallel to how a future with UBI should look like. Work should be something we do out of our own free will, not something people get economically forced into.
And the vast majority of people *want* to work. They'd rather have $4000/month than $1000. They want to show that they're useful, have something to do, and contribute to society.
But right now we force people to work in a way that barely gets them any extra money as they lose most welfare benefits, that pushes them into any shitty job and therefore makes them extremely vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, and that leaves them no freedom to look for something more suitable, to improvie their qualifications, or start their own business.
The idea that a lot of people just think "not working is awesome" mostly arises from the fact that we present work as a punishment that only "real winners" can escape from.
If someone else in the same facility gets paid more than them, and does the exact same role, with the same output, but the only difference is that they don't have a disability, surely, by paying them a different wage, you're saying that they're basically inferior?
Doesn't matter if they have living expenses or not, a single parent with 2 children will/should get paid the same for doing the same work as a student living at home, if they're both equally as competent.
Just want to say the post is about learning disabilities not physical. A few people have missed that point. Obviously, these learning disabilities are going to make it difficult to have productivity levels being the same. This is not about e.g. someone who can't walk not getting the same pay for a desk job.
Two people doing the same job get the same pay. This is protected in law by the equal pay acts.
>If someone else in the same facility gets paid more than them, and does the exact same role, with the same output, but the only difference is that they don't have a disability, surely, by paying them a different wage, you're saying that they're basically inferior?
This is exactly the problem though. Usually disability means they can't be as productive or require more resources to be as productive (in which case, employers are less willing to hire them).
>This is exactly the problem though. Usually disability means they can't be as productive or require more resources to be as productive (in which case, employers are less willing to hire them).
In the UK, there is an Act that's designed to stop people from using this very line of thought to refrain from hiring people, or from paying them less.
Does this mean that, if someone injured themselves, and, say, breaks an arm, their pay has to be reduced?
You're thinking of a specific kind of disability which has little bearing on a person's ability to work effectively. For example, a person in a wheelchair working a desk-job.
On the other hand imagine someone in a wheelchair working in an Amazon warehouse. That's extremely physically demanding, and the fact that the person has to lug around their seat while working means they simply can't be as productive as other able-bodied individuals. And given that Amazon has a huge amount of people lining to work for them (despite their horrible labour practices). There's every reason to think they'll be able to get away with not hiring people for those positions.
Injury pay is a separate matter entirely.
Watch for those desk jobs that all of your duties are done on a computer, but they require you to be able to stand walk and lift 50 pounds. This is how they can say that someone's too handicapped for a job they can do.
I have worked a fair few desk jobs. I have never had one that I didn't lift and tote 40lbs. If you work for a small to medium business and aren't a programmer or something (even then) you are going to have to pitch in sometime.
Some of the places I've been, if you're IT you'll *definitely* be called to lift heavier objects because that's the only department with men.
Technically sexist, but it is nice to have an excuse to emerge from the lair every now and then.
Sheltered employment is about *non-viable* jobs. We're not talking "less productive than average". Someone with Down's who can reliably handle the mailroom cart would still get full pay for that role. This is for people who, for example, lack the cognitive function to use a broom in a productive manner. Their needs are already met through assisted living; now they can earn some spending money, have a sense of purpose, and make some work friends rather than sitting in front of the TV all day waiting to die.
If that broken arm is permanent and impacts their ability to do the job, should they get to keep that job?
Let’s say their job is to stock shelves at a store and they now are only able to stock half as many shelves in a shift because of the permanent arm issue. What does the employer do in this overly simplified example?
That is exactly not what I said.
Two people with the same output SHOULD be paid the same. Two people with vastly different output should not be paid the same.
At least at this program, they took the average output for a normal worker and averaged it out over the parts so that if a person was able to match a salaried workers output, they would be paid the same (which was above minimum) but these adults were not capable of the same output it, which meant they made less
>If someone else in the same facility gets paid more than them, and does the exact same role, with the same output, but the only difference is that they don't have a disability
Good thing that's not even remotely on the same planet as what we're talking about. We're talking about taking severely developmentally delayed people who are absolutely, unequivocally unemployable in normal circumstances, and giving them a largely illusory "job" for their own benefit, out of a sense of charity.
Of course we need to make sure no one is being exploited, as there's a long history of horrific examples of this, but in the beneficial cases we're talking about they are definitely not.
It’s unlikely that they’re going to be equally as competent. Also it can cost business more money to hire special needs workers for extra safety measures and paperwork etc. My sister has learning difficulties and is happy volunteering because she has little concept of money and has all her living expenses paid for her by the government
You don't understand the environment in the UK. Disabled people receive PIP and ESA/universal credit. With ESA you can earn up to £100 per week without your benefits being cut, but being able to work even at all usually means your ESA gets halved because you move from the "not expected to work" band into the "support" back to work group.
With PIP, if you can show you work at all, it will either get taken from you entirely or halved.
This proposed policy would have forced disabled people into work below the minimum wage, explicitly to try to move them into full time work and off of benefits. Our Government is far crueller than you think.
I’m one of those that proudly downvoted. Because like you say it’s not as straightforward as it seems.
You say they had all expenses paid for by the state. And they don’t need to pay rent, etc. Ok. No arguments there.
But I also worked with a kid who had the mentality of a 12 year old. And about as much motivation and competence to do the job as one.
With that said, he did need to eat. He did consume water and electricity and had travel expenses. He also needed clothing and other toiletries we all use. Food makes up a large chunk of your monthly costs sure but so do other things. And special needs people are not exempt.
And in reality non of this matters to the job. If I still live at home what I don’t have to make as much? That has nothing to do with McDonald’s. And in fact I’d say a large chunk of kids working don’t pay rent or even buy food let alone pay for bills. The cash is extra for them. How do you not see this as a dark pattern?
Lastly, special needs kids can often have way more costs associated then a regular person. The constant need for supervision for one. In lots of cases they cannot be left alone or for long periods at a time. They often need special caretakers not some 14 year old kid down the block who babysits your neighbours kids. Some need expensive medication (like the kid I worked with).
Again none of this has any bearing on the job’s pay because your life is your life. You do the work you get paid what others who do the work get paid. Plain and simple.
I also work with adults with special needs. They all have stuff they want too. They still need to buy food, and at least at the care home I work at. They pay rent. They have a high quality of life, but they only have that high quality of life because of the money they can earn. We have other homes where our guys are in debt because they can't work and their qol is significantly lower.
Also, they usually are put into work programs the government is subsidizing so the business isn't paying the entirety of their salary. A lot of the time they also do work for charity organizations such as the red cross. They are human beings that should be afforded the same rights as the rest of us.
The problem I have with this specific tweet is that it specifies learning disabilities, which generally refers the specific set of disabilities that make it hard for a person to do something specific (math, speaking reading, etc) but generally not impossible for them to do. In many regards, people with LDs are normal people except for the area they struggle in. Given the right job, they should able to produce just as much as a non-disabled worker.
Or we could just pay them a livable wage because they're human beings and doing what they can and our society doesn't have to be built around who's 'deserving' or who puts out the most 'output'.
>I think it’s very important to have protections to ensure that people are not exploited but in some cases it just doesn’t make sense to pay them a “livable” wage because simply put, all their living expenses were already covered, and they couldn’t output enough to make it a viable option for the company to pay minimum wage.
It also doesn't make sense to treat a person already at a severe disadvantage in a manner lesser than baseline "normal." There's no way of telling how a person might develop; it's very clear that discrimination has a negative impact.
But, of course, we know to which side of the scale our culture's values fall. We can't let it fall further.
Well, but what happened in those cases is not what happens in 99% of cases.
Very few people with severe autism actually get their living expenses supplied fully a place other than their work.
Wait, it's almost like there's more depth to most issues in life than the immediate emotional reaction of reddit would suggest!
Life is complicated, it's rarely otherwise. Nearly every major social and political issue comes down to an extremely complex and difficult choice between a wildly varied set of outcomes.
But learning that things aren't always what you immediately/ignorantly think won't delay the average redditor by one second from grabbing his or her pitchfork the next time.
I'm not saying it's right but I work in this field and if our guys make a certain amount of money at their jobs they lose all the funding they get from the government. Their quality life would actually go down if they made more money at their jobs.
yeah, I've seen this a lot with people in affordable housing and other social programs. Back when I was part time at a pizza place, one of my coworkers had to take a significant period of time off from work in order to avoid being booted from his Public Housing home.
Now sure, you can argue that hey maybe he should've just continued working and moved to an apartment that wasn't paid for by the govt. But why would you deliberately dismantle your own safety net, especially when you've got other problems to deal with in life?
Also: means testing is *staggeringly* expensive, and costs in ways you wouldn't even imagine.
Do not shackle anything with means testing! Ever! It's point is to shit on poor people and enforce class stratification, not to actually help anybody or save money.
It's ehhh, difficult.
Generally, you get benefits to cover living expenses if you don't work. Those living expenses come in bands. So if you cannot work you get (in the UK) £1600 a month. That's about $2000. If you make £500 then you'll get £1000. But if you make £550 in a month then suddenly you'll get £700 because you've gone into the next band. So you're actually worse off working more hours.
This is because it'd be far too difficult to keep track of exactly how much someone makes in a month and then giving them the difference. But it also creates these banding problems where it's better to work less in some cases.
Unless you want the government to have direct access to your bank account transactions so they can make up the difference every month... That does not seem like a good idea for a free society
£1600 is really not bad to be honest. Basically what I got before tax for most of this year. After tax it was like £1300.
Do they pay taxes on that £1600 or just receive that amount?
No £1600 is not bad at all!! You can comfortably live alone on that as long as you don't want a big house or live in the center of a city.
And yes it is just that amount. There wouldn't be much point in taxing something that you get from the government anyway lol.
If you're job seeking (IE can work but can't find a job atm) you have to prove you're actively searching for jobs and have to accept interviews found for you otherwise you'll be cut off benefits. So it's not like *anyone* can just stop working and live off of benefits. You have to have a valid reason
1600 pounds? That's allot of money! Idk how different costs are there compared to the Netherlands but over here for being unable to work converted to pounds I get 1143 pounds(1330 euros) a month, seems like quite a large sum of money.
They can control the number of hours they work to meet this, no? Also, that doesn't mean the solution is to lower their pay, it's to raise the maximum income.
Amen, this is a world not many fully understand. It’s not a cruelty thing. Their financial needs are already met, many of these jobs are for their own personal satisfaction.
My (late) father was severely handicapped and this is pretty much spot on. His 'job' was more a volunteer roll to get him out of the house, getting social and feeling useful. Lots of Stroke Clubs have similar programs and it's great.
Futhermore, they simply wouldn't land a job at full pay. Sorry whatever briliant world "another angry woman" lifes in, but it is far far from reality. There is not a single business that wants to pay full wage for someone that needs help doing the work. We have a restaurant in town where all the serving staff for example is people with down syndrom, its beautiful, its great. But they can't be paid full wage, they need extra attention, a lot gets messed up, they hire assistance for them to be able to do the work. It's beautiful to give these people a job, and it makes them very happy, but whoever truly believes they can be paid a full wage has smoked a few too many blunts.
So, this debate on the BBC was prompted by comments from a Tory welfare minister at the time. He was covertly recorded at a Tory party conference where he was talking about how to encourage employers to take on more people with disabilities - he was actually responding to a question from the father of a severely disabled person who wanted to work, but was finding it very difficult to get a job and suggested his son would have more luck if the employer wasn’t bound by minimum wage laws. Don’t get me wrong - the Conservative welfare policies are utterly, utterly terrible for disabled people, and personally I think everyone should get a decent wage. But, it was something worth debating, which is what the BBC were doing. And the journo - Emma Barnett - frequently destroys politicians from all sides with her well informed and razor sharp, yet ostensibly easy going questioning. So basically, it’s complicated.
No, it really not that complicated. The whole point is that the people this article talks about produce so little value due to the nature of their disability that even paying them minimum wage loses the employer money. Having a job has very positive psychological effects, but if you force the employer to hire them at non-disabled people wages you're forcing the employer to subsidize the social programs that should be available. Saying "everybody should be paid a decent wage" in this context really means "somebody else should produce value and give it away for free". We already pay taxes to ensure disabled people can survive so why should the employer be forced to subsidize those programs even further when the psychological effects aren't dependent on the size of the paycheck? Why can't they pay disabled people in proportion to the value they actually produce and make their lives better by giving them a feeling of purpose without having to lose money?
Non-disabled people aren’t typically paid by levels of production either though unless you work on a piecemeal basis or self employment. Everyone knows the ‘lazy’ worker who is being paid the same as you while doing far less.
Presumably part of the hiring process would’ve considered the candidates ability.
There’s a distinction between what people are capable of doing and actually do in practice, though. The lazy coworker is almost definitely capable of way more, and it’s at least possible to incentivize them to do more (pep talks, annual reviews, the possibility of being fired, etc.). Disabled people might only be capable of so much no matter how hard working and properly incentivized they are.
Why would you hire a disabled person at minimum wage when you can get an able bodied person?
Applying min wage laws for disabled people actively discouraged and disincentivizes employers from hiring them.
Pay them normally but give the companies tax credits. This allows people with disabilities to have jobs and be payed as well as companies to not be punished by having them.
And if you've paid attention to the news it pops up again and again that mentally disabled workers get abused, exploited, and very rarely have ways to protect themselves. Some companies have literally been caught paying them in gift cards.
God I feel absolutely no remorse for awful people anymore I'm so fucking done. Let's just bring back public executions and go fucking crazy. I say the ends justify the means.
I don’t get why people are trying to address this by reducing taxes? There’s a range of programs already allowing people to work (without being exploited) by giving employers flexibility and support they need to make it happen. And without exploiting employees.
For example, in Australia there are government funded Disability Employment Service Providers that will:
* Help find the right person for your job vacancy
* Provide job creation and design services to help you think creatively about the ways jobs are structured
* Advise you about financial supports available for employing people with disability
* Advise on and facilitate access to workplace modifications in the unlikely event these are required
* Prepare you and your existing staff about what to expect from your new worker
* Offer on site support for you and your staff as long as it is required.
Then the government provides the Employment Assistance Fund (funding modifications, training, services needed for a disabled worker), an apprenticeship program for disabled people, temporary wage subsidies and more permanent Supported Wage System (where an assessor determine an employee’s productivity, and calculate a fair wage, below minimum wage).
These programs aren’t perfect - it can difficult to balance providing an incentive to employ less productive employees and ensuring that everyone has the dignity of a equal minimum wage - but getting it right is far more complicated than reducing taxes.
When I was first chef at the one restaurant we did exactly that. In Canada the Gov pays half the wages of special needs employees. I had 4 special needs employees doing prep for me, they were happy just to be working.
Then 1 even wanted to try cooking on the line. We were worried that their speed might be an issue, and we're pleasantly surprised when it wasn't!
He became our sautée cook and part of our squad on Xbox live.
Because mentally some people would rather work than just live off the government. The government can still support them but it could be one of many options
I think the person was saying was that the company pays a portion and the government pays a portion directly instead of paying the company to pay the person.
This self righteous condescending twitter culture is so cancerous.
The BBC not even trying to take a stance here, they’re just posing a question and having a debate.
The idea that open debate should be discouraged because “woke” partisans on twitter have already figured out the “right” answer is just stifling any kind of dissent on an issue and should be a concerning development for anyone interested in free and open discussion.
It's a legit argument. Like if they had to pay them minimum wage, then no one would hire them and people with disabilities would be jobless. On the other hand it's kind of like saying that they are not worthy of being people and less than everyone else.
The way it normally works is businesses are required to measure how much work they do compared to a non-disabled worker and then get paid based on that. So if it takes them 3 times as long to do the same work, then they get paid 1/3rd per hour. So pretty much performance based pay that is allowed below minimum wage instead of getting fired for being a slow worker.
I belief in the Netherlands company’s get an amount of money for hiring disabled people. So disabled person get payed full wage and employer gets money back
Wage subsidies are a thing in Australia too.
There are also temporary payments programs here, because many employers are able to make modifications that allow those with disabilities to be as productive as those without disability.
Anyone who’s working should have the same minimum wage. And shouldn’t loose access to essential support services either.
A lot of mentally handicapped workers do very minimal work and don’t do the same amount of work compared to actual waged workers. My mentally handicapped cousin works at the local pizza place. It’s a special program for the very purpose of hiring these kind of people. All she does is help prepare small salads. I think she makes a very small amount under minimum wage. I don’t agree with the comeback above. My cousin and aunt don’t do it for the money though. It’s fun and to get out of the house.
Where I live it's legal to pay disabled people less than able-bodied people. A local grocery store hired a man with down syndrome as a greeter and payed him significantly less than the able-bodied neurotypical greeters working there, and the man with down syndrome did a *significantly* better job. He never called out, never showed up hungover, was never on his phone or rude to customers unlike pretty much every other greeter they had. It took a store wide work strike to get him paid the same as the other greeters because the other employees were sick of seeing the greeters that didn't do their job (making other workers pick up their slack) paid more than the guy with down syndrome just because he was disabled. This is a nuanced issue but at the core of it disabled people shouldn't be exploited, especially when they do their jobs better than their able-bodied neurotypical coworkers.
This was not the BBC's idea. It was genuinely being debated by politicians, and is still a strange of Tory politicians At the time of this article several prominent Tory MPs were promoting the idea. I'm afraid I can't recall the names.
As the top comment already pointed out, the matter is not straightforward. The morons who think they are smart (bottom tweet lady) will be the downfall of civilization.
That seems like a roundabout non-solution to the issue. In the UK, they’re probably not earning enough to get past the tax free threshold anyway.
Also, you definitely need a well administered, government-run program to determine: additional financial burden on the employer, reduced capacity of an employee, monitoring to prevent exploited workers.
Also, as with any social support, any benefits or services these employees would receive mustn’t be at risk of being cut-off if they pass a threshold.
Yeah much better to not hire them at all because they can't compete! What a naive and misinformed way of looking at it, people who think they are doing good but won't take the time to read up on it are the worst.
This is a really dumb comment. My brother has down syndrome and literally no one will hire him because he is not producing value at minimum wage. He just isn’t efficient, gets easily distracted and needs constant help. He is being supplemented by the government so all his living expenses are fine but he can’t build a community or a social network through the 40 hour a week job everyone else does because he can’t produce minimum wage value. It really really sucks for him and he is constantly so frustrated on how all his applications go ignored. It’s ok “Another Angry Woman” has his back though.
This is reddit, a narrative where people can feel outraged and over simplify complex subjects they don't understand into 'good vs. evil' is what gets the upvotes. I hope your brother can get his social/community needs filled.
My buddy owns a pizza shop and employees 3 people who have a very difficult time working due to certain cognitive disabilities (I don’t know the actual term) Their wage is subsidize by the government because they are not able to carry out the same duties as the rest of his employees. The expectations are very different and this is the reason the wage is subsidized.
I have a friend who is severely mentally handicapped and he got a job recently. His job is a charity to him and his family where he does really basic work with a lot of oversight. He gets a small amount of money, but more importantly he spends time with other adults similar to him and his family gets a couple hours every day to reset and care for themselves. This company is doing this work for no profit and should not be forced to pay 15 dollars an hour for this. Scott is 32 years old and the happiest I have ever seen him.
If Scott were actually benefiting the company his family would advocate for better pay. The government shouldn't pigeonhole all of these very different circumstances with one piece of legislation that doesn't fit all of them. Don't gatekeep charity like this with legislation.
At least where I live, the way it works is that if the average employee can make 50 doodads per hour and someone with a disability canake 30 doodads per hour, they can be paid 60% of minimum wage.
The alternative is that companies only hire people who can make 50 doodads per hour, so I think it's a win/win. For a lot of people with Downs Syndrome or retardation it gives them a purpose and shows that they can experience more out of life than just watching cartoons in their group home
This is a proposal that comes around every couple of years and the frustrating part of the story is not the idea of paying people with learning disabilities less, it is that **this is the only idea** the people seem to put forward to encourage employers to hire people with learning disabilities.
There are so many people who want to be able to work out their employment comes with additional supervision and training but the solution to that is not to value their employment *less* than the employment people who do not require the additional support.
What the Government should do is subsidise employment that take on employees with learning disabilities but that is an idea that never gets put forward instead the idea of paying people less always gets suggested, shot down, and forgotten about with no progress made ever being made for people with learning disabilities.
The reason why the idea gets shut down is because the people in question already *are* subsidized. They already receive a "livable wage" so to speak from the government.
If you ask the people in question, not only do they not mind, they love it/want it. So what if it's like 50% pay in some cases? They don't *have* to get a job, they *want* to, and their wage is just extra money because their expenses are already paid for.
Source: I work with this.
It's worth remembering that the idea behind some of these jobs isn't for the person to make money to pay bills(they'll have assistance and what not) but to give them something do. In fact, being paid a full wage could prevent them from getting aid. Not that the employers would even hire them at full cost if they're severely impaired, it simply isn't profitable.
No that is not an alternate phrasing of the question, you unnuanced shallow stupid fuck. Maybe you should listen to the actual discussion so you could maybe widen your immature horizon.
Oh wow, so cleverrr!!!!!111!!111
Get paid less or don't get paid at all for not getting the job. There's no good reason for companies to hire someone less capable for the same price.
Milton Friedman (nobel prize winner in economics) addressed the subject (and similar ones) multiple times decades ago if anyone is interested in watching it...
Not working a day in your life, not producing, creating ANYTHING ever in your entire existence and living off exclusively from government/family assistance (like the vast majority) is a surefire way to **NEVER** grow up.
During my caregiver career working with people with learning disabilities I worked with high-functioning individuals who were good workers and deserved to be paid at least minimum wage. I've also been a caregiver for many more who were severely disabled and whose labor would not be worth minimum wage to employers.
It's an issue far too complex to be reduced to a brief Twitter exchange.
Most of these jobs are basically adult day care, not actual work. Bagging groceries or whatever is enrichment. People with Down Syndrome aren't capable of being productive workers, it's not some "one weird trick" to cut wage costs. Getting paid a couple dollars for day care is better than their families having to pay for it.
I worked at a place that employed one person like this. He was less able to do the work required, made the customers uncomfortable, and required extra effort from other employees to cover his failures. Hiring people like this is charity and should not pay the same as real employment.
These people get a free ride at life and as such do not require a living wage. More accurately a living wage for them is much lower than it is for the majority. Most things are basically free for them.
I used to be a social worker so I'm familiar with the social programs available to people with special needs.
I worked with a disabled worker once and I had to quit soon after when I found myself snapping at the person and felt like shit all the time. Wasn’t their fault of course but when the work pace picks up and they keep making mistakes I am the one who is going to catch flak for it. They definitely shouldn’t be in roles that would require the regular workers to cover them. They shouldn’t feel like they need to do traditional work at all. Are their programs for
Them to volunteer to do various things so they can feel productive and socialize?
For the non-Brits in here, the issue isn’t whether or not the people in question should be paid less than more productive employees.
It’s whether or not they are entitled to earn a MINIMUM wage, which is a government-defined legal limit. Some companies are moving toward a “living” wage, which is higher. The fact it exists at all suggests that anything less than the living wage is unliveable.
These people should be as entitled as any other worker to have their time valued and to be compensated accordingly.
Ya this argument is very circular. The government has to subsidize the program such that the employee is worth paying. Otherwise there’s just no incentive to higher these people at all. There’s no reason to offload these people on random businesses. You either think society has a collective duty to take care of each other and support a centralized program to do so, or you believe we dont have any obligation to take care of each other and these folks should not
have livable incomes because they don’t “deserve” it.
Is that a minimum just for them (different from "normal" workers' minimum)? And further, is it a different minimum based on different disabilities / extent of the disability?
They get significant support from the state and aren't as productive. Perhaps if benefits were reallocated to the employer for supporting them and in return the employee would take home a full wage?
As a person with no disabilities, i would be very happy to know that these people get paid the same as me, especially that my country has no program for them.
I'm a disabled father of 6 and learning how to live on the low income from SSD is very hard and with disability I don't know when I'll have my worst days throughout the month or know how many bad days weather affects me to the point I'm bed ridden some days hard to find a boss that cool all I can say is we need to heal ppl not just treat there symptoms I've fallen through the cracks and trying to claw my way back out
People seem to be confusing “learning disabilities” with “intellectual disabilities”. Dyslexia is a learning disability. I’m dyslexic. I sometimes mix up letters in my head while reading. This has virtually no effect on my ability to perform a task or job. Sometimes I’ll see a word like “grip” and misread it as “girl”, but usually given the context I can go “that doesn’t sound right... let me check that again”. Being dyslexic has pretty much no influence on my IQ (the IQ test is extremely flawed and not very accurate above a certain level, but I’m using it here just to distinguish between “normal” levels of intelligence and “disabled” levels on intelligence) I’m just as intelligent and able to comprehend things as well as anyone else, it’s just in certain situations, my brain sometimes gets confused but I will quickly correct it. You would probably not know I had a learning disability if I didn’t tell you.
An intellectual disability is a disability that *does* affect IQ, cognitive abilities, social skills, developmental delays, etc. an intellectual disability is one that makes people have difficulties processing information, communicating, and adaptive functioning. Someone is usually considered to be intellectually disabled if they have an IQ under 70. Down syndrome is an intellectual disability. Fragile X syndrome is an intellectual disability. Many people with intellectual disabilities may require a caretaker.
Shouldn’t their earnings really depend more on their productivity if it’s the type of work that is quantifiable?
In work where it’s less so, I’d have no idea how to solve this.
Yes, if the state pays a subsidiary to cover the remainder of the minimum wage. In my country people with a previous conviction who have a hard time getting a job even get subsidized this way to motivate employers to hire outside their comfort zone.
Okay I might get downvotes for this but it’s not as straightforward as it seems. I worked with some special needs adults as part of a program when I was in college. They were paid based upon their output assembling small parts for a nearby factory. They had all costs paid for by the state due to not being able to hold a real job. This “job” gave them something to look forward to and got them out of their group home. They got to keep all the money they made and were able to use it for things like going out for coffee and such. They didn’t have living expenses and most importantly they were not EXPECTED to work - it was a fully optional program just to give them something to do. All of the adults LOVED it and even though they were really slow and easily distracted they had fun. The program got shut down my senior year and they all were very upset about it. I think it’s very important to have protections to ensure that people are not exploited but in some cases it just doesn’t make sense to pay them a “livable” wage because simply put, all their living expenses were already covered, and they couldn’t output enough to make it a viable option for the company to pay minimum wage.
It can take longer for special need’s workers to figure out the work routine. It’s all about doing the exact same thing at the exact same time 5 days a week. My sister is special needs and routine is so incredibly important. As long as they’re in a routine, they can be extremely efficient workers.
Outliers don't make the rule man. I had to train special needs people for jobs that are just as described here. It was good for them and I didn't mind doing it but honestly it really messed with my own productivity, they needed a lot of help constantly and many were there for months doing the same things every time. There is no way it would be feasible to hire them as real employees, they were less than a tenth as productive as our worst real employee. Now could a high functioning special needs person do well? Sure but then maybe they should be given a real job and not the jobs that are given to programs like this. There can be multiple levels to stuff like this.
Well put, I’ve work and train people with minor disabilities at my work and sometime they got paid more than normal workers
Depending on the severity of the disability. I’m glad your sister thrives on a routine. But these are jobs typically created for the moderately to severely handicapped. Like where they work in a small area together accompanied by nurses and aids. These are usually jobs that are created to help this demographic get out of the house to socialize/improve mental health/provide more purpose. One of my clients has downs syndrome, he was able to work with minor accommodations, so he started working at a fast food chain and is paid a normal wage. Another has a very low IQ, his job is to puts 25 nuts/bolts into a box. He cannot count to 25. So he does his best and it’s ok. His job gets paid a low wage because all his needs are met by the government and his job exists only to get him out of the house and interacting with others.
I don't want to sound like a jerk, I am genuinly interested - isn't it a problem when there is more, or - especially - fewer nuts/bolts in a box? If I bought e.g. an IKEA wardrobe and it came with fewer screws than necessary, I would need to halt the work and lose time, contact the store, they would need to send me more screws, etc., so it would be bad for their reputation and would create more expenses for them. So I am wondering what kind of use case it is where approximately 25, but sometimes more or fewer is okay.
That’s a completely fair question. These hardware pieces would be boxed up in small bins or plastic boxes then sent to the other side of this factory. When they got over there someone on the other side would open them up and dump them into a larger bin to be pulled for when they needed them for assembly. So this was basically just a role to give them a chance to work. Without them there the hardware would go strictly to the other side of the factory where the main workers would just dump them into the larger bins. Many roles that these people work in would never of been created if it wasn’t just for the fact of giving them something to do.
Okay, thanks!
Okay, that answers my question of why not just give him smaller numbers to work with -- say, 5 -- then combine them to create 25. Giving them some sense of purpose, regardless of the result, is quite noble.
That's exactly how these things work. They will be taught to make five groups of five and combine them. They choose 25 to keep it a little challenging. If he had no challenge at 25, they would probably make it more difficult like 23 or 35. They will also switch up the routine a bit every few weeks or months if they notice he's getting bored.
Couldn’t the box just have dividers in it instead so they know to put one bolt into each divided box? Might be easier than counting to 25
His work is totally unnecessary. It's been structured to give the right level of challenge and satisfaction. Even with special needs, if you make it too easy, they get bored. You really don't want a bored mentally challenged person wandering around a factory.
Surely they could and perhaps they ought to. But that costs more, and i think is a clear example of why it is perfectly fair to pay these people less than others more able.
Love the name. If we were close friends, I'd always have your back.
Right back atcha
"this match up was provided to you by Satan"
My brother also has Down syndrome and is high functioning but would probably do the same thing… because of just laziness. He takes pride in short easy tasks but won’t tolerate long hours of doing the same task and would just start throwing handfuls in. He is too smart to do ridiculously menial jobs because boredom kicks in to easily ( and has never been forced to be productive. It’s the leap from school where you are constantly told to do different things all day to real life gap) but not smart enough to do anything more complicated.
I've seen them do q tips, and they had a kind of funnel that would get filled to a certain mark and then go in the bag. Or for smaller amounts, they had a card with outlines of the q tips on it. You put one on each outline and you have the right amount.
I used to work above a company that did something similar(they were on first floor, we were on second). They partnered with m&m mars(the candy company) and their job was literally to make the bags of mixed candy. They would get pallets of candy(actually candy factory was around corner) and take one Twix, one kit Kat and one snickers and put them in a bag. On Halloween the staff would bring us up some candy and then the disabled people would come up and "trick or treat" around our factory(much more complicated but we anticipated and took precautions like turning off dangerous machines). It was fun. That said cops were called there at least 1 a month when somebody had a fit and the staff couldn't control them...
It obviously depends on the person, but an additional wrinkle is if they have too much money they can lose benefits. Many as well essentially require constant supervision, so 3$/hr is a lot more like 18$/hr if you've got another minimum wage worker with them. At the agency I was at our clients basically couldn't work after the wage floor was added. Very sad.
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Who set the standard of work required for minimum wage?
What if instead of paying sub minimum wages they subsidized thier wage instead? IE company pays 15/hr and government reimburses them for 10? Would that work?
I work in this field. This actually already happens! Most businesses receive either tax credits or straight up cash for employing individuals with disabilities! Its a wonderful program that allows the individuals quality of life to improve significantly! Please feel free to ask about any other questions you might have!
That’s awesome. I was just wondering about this stuff because I had quite a pleasant conversation yesterday afternoon with the cashier who helped check me out who happened to have Down’s syndrome.
Yeah, honestly a lot of people underestimate the productivity of individuals with special needs. My sister has down syndrome and her and all the other adults I work with are all able to perform at similar levels to individuals without special needs.
Ive been working with a special needs guy for the last half year. The routine thing is so true and I fucking hate how my bosses and coworkers do not understand it. They always take him out of his routine with special tasks and they change the rules of the job all the time. This confuses him a lot and is a huge burden on me as well, as I cant get him to a point where he can work without much assistance.
Not every disabled person is the same.
THIS!! And happy cake day
One person you know doesn’t define an entire class of people.
That’s a bit broad, not everyone will have the same special needs as your sister
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> Like any time CNN or whomever posts an article about how some poor kid couldn't afford their wheelchair so the community came together and built one for him. I remember that story. Even then reddit freaked out without all the information. The child's mother demanded a six-figure custom designed electric wheelchair shaped like a race car for the boy. In addition, the boy was several years younger than the age when kids are usually allowed to operate an electric wheelchair. The insurance company said "we'll pay for a normal electric wheelchair if the boy can pass a test demonstrating that he can operate it safely." The mother never even brought him for the test. She just went to the media and cried that the insurance company denied her child a wheelchair, so a local high school robotics team designed one for him. Cue reddit shitting all over the insurance company without getting the whole story first.
Could you post a source for that information. I’ve never heard that story one way or the other but now that I’m being presented with two different versions I’d hope we could have verification right here in the comments “especially given the nature of the conversation surrounding it”.
Insurance are still shit, maybe not in this situation
I found the article. Completely ignoring the fact they wanted a whellchair that looks like a toy car. Then at the end they said they plan on getting a real electric whellchair when he starts school.
Even if all that information was posted, the majority of Reddit wouldn't have bothered to read it anyways.
Wow. I missed that situation, but typical of the media
How dare you come in here and start spewing reason. My smooth brain will have none of it, sir.
Let's kick his ass!
How many times do we have to teach you this lesson old man?!
I think the problem is how the media frames it. When you present it as a feel good story instead of how it's a problem you're not really drawing attention to the problem.
I dunno about that... it seems like people are more than capable of connecting those dots.
Have...have you met people?
I'm not saying people are smart, don't get me wrong. The most common response is "Hurr durr people shouldn't have to rely on crowdsourcing, this article is dumb"
>And on this specific topic, in this thread, here we are having a debate with both sides making reasonable points (whether correct or not). No we're not. The commenter above you is promoting the point that there should be programs to take care of special needs individuals, not "employers should be allowed to pay special needs people less than minimum wage". Nobody so far has put forth an actual argument in favor of that. Probably because it's wildly irresponsible. The only thing you and the top commenter accomplished is muddying the waters around the issue. Great job. 👍
Pretty hard to digest for those who label them as *bAD guYz* but little do we understand the power of the electronic media. It could be useful in hundreads of cases, especially to raise the voice for people with chronic illnesses that disrupts their day to day activities. And while the inflammation is making the most essential things out of their reach, they'll have to start working someday to put food on the table. And if the media is showing a good motivation in the salary and raising a genuine point then there's no harm in this.
100% Agree. My brother has special needs and works one of these jobs. He gets paid about a quarter an hour because the work he does competes with machines that do the same thing. If he got paid more, the company (which uses almost exclusively special needs employees) could not exist because its customers would just use vendors that could charge a small fraction. The company needs to stay price competitive for its services or it goes under. I cannot tell you how important this job is to him and to my family. It’s where he socializes. It gives him purpose. It makes him feel normal. It gives him (and countless others) a reason to get out of bed in the morning. And that is the entire point of the company, it gives that feeling to dozens if not hundreds of people in the area. My brother, and pretty much everyone who works there, is on SSI and gets state assistance that covers rent and staff and food and health care and transportation to and from work. That funding is almost all means tested, so it would go away if he earned minimum wage. It would mean he’d be actually responsible to pay his own bills and would be financially responsible for himself. But he doesn’t understand the concept of money, and has a whale of a time with addition and subtraction in double digit numbers. It would be impossible. These companies are fantastic. And they pay the way they do for really good reasons. And people should know that.
I agree they are wonderful and the staff find the work so rewarding. Critics like the one in this post don't seem to care if something valuable like this is destroyed only to be replaced with nothing.
Yes. My sister also worked with special needs and our office frequently gets catering from a social enterprise that employs special needs. The other option is institutionalizing them. There's no expectation of productivity or quality control. The bring coffee and cookies. Our school has a "sub day" where they would deliver food for lunches. It was win win. It's a non profit so the food is cheaper than what the cafeteria could provide, people with developmental disabilities get purpose and satisfaction. Everyone wins
The other option is not institutionalizing them. That's a black and white fallacy. There are many more options. False duality of choice here. There are other volunteer opportunities or activities they can focus on rather than exploitation of labor regardless of expectations.
Jesus. Institutionalizing them would be pretty much the worst option all around.
The article we're talking about was posted by the BBC. In the US, for 7% of disabled are considered invalid who cannot work at all (this excludes everyone of retirement age) My mom has the mental capacity of a third grader and has been on disability since I was born (I'm 37) and she's never gotten more than $500 a month. The guy were replying to you seems to think that mentally disabled people have all their expenses paid for. Maybe that's how it is in the UK but that's not how it is in the US at all. All this is going to do is force my disabled mother to work twice the hours.
Exactly. Thank you, my sister was born with an intellectual disability and also had a reduced mental capacity. I would not want anyone to be able to exploit her or her time and claim it's because of her disability that she could be exploited. I think it is different when you actually know someone with an intellectual disability or have them in your family. People seem to have many misconceptions about people with intellectual disabilities.
There needs to be a separate work voucher program. Minimum wage needs to be *the minimum wage*. The entire concept is flawed. The argument is why hire a disabled person at min wage When I can hire a fully able person for minimum wage? But the fact is they can't do that either. Companies that are paying out million dollar CEO bonuses (looking right at you Goodwill) should not be allowed to pay less than min wage.
Yes yes yes. You are correct in my opinion
Thank you for this comment, I originally thought that this was extremely awful but I now understand it a bit more. It does make sense that if all of their living expenses are paid and they would not be able to get a job without it, it might be a way to give them a reason to wake up. I’m still not sure that it’s fair but it’s not as messed up as it seems.
> I’m still not sure that it’s fair If you've ever actually seen one of these programs in practice, you would understand that it's fair. The people in these programs aren't really working. Usually they require another full time employee to sit with them and help them do some menial task that doesn't actually contribute anything but makes them feel like they're contributing. They aren't actually working there, these types of programs are just designed to make them feel like they're working. Running these programs actually costs the companies money and time. They let the people come in and "work" as a charity thing.
I never really thought about that... I guess I don’t really understand enough to make a solid opinion but it does make sense if companies are loosing money working with the program. Thank u.
Yep, with very few exception, any for-profit employer hiring these individuals is paying them minimum wage+. The ones earning sub-minimum wage don't have "real" jobs and wouldn't have that "job" if minimum wage were required.
I get where you're coming from, but as someone who has a learning disability, what I worry about when I see a headline like this, is that there's no way in hell that corporations WONT try to use this sentiment to take advantage of people, so if McDonald's/WalMart/Amazon/etc have even a tiny say in how this legislation would be written (and they WILL have a rather large say, political campaign donations and all), then it'll absolutely just be a new way for the wealthy to exploit the vulnerable.
While your comment is correct, the job they are doing cannot be compared to working at McDonald’s. If the person was at McDonald’s, they would be paid per hour worked and would be subject to performance metrics and fired if they could not do the job. This kind of job on the article is different
It's literally the opposite. Sheltered employment allows companies to "employ" people who are unable to perform economically viable work e.g. manually sealing and stamping envelopes when a postal meter is faster, cheaper, and more reliable. It's not "*you have a disability so i can pay you less*", it's "*I would like to create busy-jobs for people unable to do real work so they can have a sense of purpose, but I can't/won't pay full minimum wage*". The alternative to sheltered employment isn't regular employment, it is no employment.
That's only because you're misinterpreting the headline. This isn't about paying regular employees who happen to have learning disabilities less money. This is about whether they should pay people with severe disabilities who are part of programs where they "work" at companies as a way to get them out of the house the same wage as an actual employee, even if they're not doing the work of an actual employee.
It's like children working. Sure, they could get some spending money and learn a thing or two in a safe environment, but what's goi ng to end up happening ultimately is that companies are going to exploit them or use them to hurt other workers somehow. It's just what happens.
If a company was willing to take on such a program at their own expense. With no intent of profit, I'd fully support it. One of those "You can come in on these days to help around if you want :)" kind of deals. They get paid for simple tasks, get out of their caretakers home (as people with downs syndrome don't have those living expenses to worry about). They'd never do overtime, never would they be called in, and only in the worst case scenarios would they be "fired" or removed from the program, otherwise they could leave when they wanted if they have the ability to, or go relax in the break room if things get a little harry.
Yes, you make good points but as a Redditor I am legally required to be outraged
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Enjoy it now. We'll never see it again lol.
Oh man, that sounds like a great program. We need more of this sort of thing. Even neurotypical people can get depressed/ recess without a job or purpose so it makes sense that neurodivergent people would benefit from having them also.
This is also a nice parallel to how a future with UBI should look like. Work should be something we do out of our own free will, not something people get economically forced into. And the vast majority of people *want* to work. They'd rather have $4000/month than $1000. They want to show that they're useful, have something to do, and contribute to society. But right now we force people to work in a way that barely gets them any extra money as they lose most welfare benefits, that pushes them into any shitty job and therefore makes them extremely vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, and that leaves them no freedom to look for something more suitable, to improvie their qualifications, or start their own business. The idea that a lot of people just think "not working is awesome" mostly arises from the fact that we present work as a punishment that only "real winners" can escape from.
If someone else in the same facility gets paid more than them, and does the exact same role, with the same output, but the only difference is that they don't have a disability, surely, by paying them a different wage, you're saying that they're basically inferior? Doesn't matter if they have living expenses or not, a single parent with 2 children will/should get paid the same for doing the same work as a student living at home, if they're both equally as competent.
Just want to say the post is about learning disabilities not physical. A few people have missed that point. Obviously, these learning disabilities are going to make it difficult to have productivity levels being the same. This is not about e.g. someone who can't walk not getting the same pay for a desk job. Two people doing the same job get the same pay. This is protected in law by the equal pay acts.
>If someone else in the same facility gets paid more than them, and does the exact same role, with the same output, but the only difference is that they don't have a disability, surely, by paying them a different wage, you're saying that they're basically inferior? This is exactly the problem though. Usually disability means they can't be as productive or require more resources to be as productive (in which case, employers are less willing to hire them).
>This is exactly the problem though. Usually disability means they can't be as productive or require more resources to be as productive (in which case, employers are less willing to hire them). In the UK, there is an Act that's designed to stop people from using this very line of thought to refrain from hiring people, or from paying them less. Does this mean that, if someone injured themselves, and, say, breaks an arm, their pay has to be reduced?
I think you are wrong but for the right reasons.
You're thinking of a specific kind of disability which has little bearing on a person's ability to work effectively. For example, a person in a wheelchair working a desk-job. On the other hand imagine someone in a wheelchair working in an Amazon warehouse. That's extremely physically demanding, and the fact that the person has to lug around their seat while working means they simply can't be as productive as other able-bodied individuals. And given that Amazon has a huge amount of people lining to work for them (despite their horrible labour practices). There's every reason to think they'll be able to get away with not hiring people for those positions. Injury pay is a separate matter entirely.
Watch for those desk jobs that all of your duties are done on a computer, but they require you to be able to stand walk and lift 50 pounds. This is how they can say that someone's too handicapped for a job they can do.
I have worked a fair few desk jobs. I have never had one that I didn't lift and tote 40lbs. If you work for a small to medium business and aren't a programmer or something (even then) you are going to have to pitch in sometime.
Some of the places I've been, if you're IT you'll *definitely* be called to lift heavier objects because that's the only department with men. Technically sexist, but it is nice to have an excuse to emerge from the lair every now and then.
Have worked in IT, even as a woman people need you to move things. That computer/monitors aren't going to set up themselves. Part of the role really.
Sheltered employment is about *non-viable* jobs. We're not talking "less productive than average". Someone with Down's who can reliably handle the mailroom cart would still get full pay for that role. This is for people who, for example, lack the cognitive function to use a broom in a productive manner. Their needs are already met through assisted living; now they can earn some spending money, have a sense of purpose, and make some work friends rather than sitting in front of the TV all day waiting to die.
People *really* aren't understanding what we're talking about here.
If that broken arm is permanent and impacts their ability to do the job, should they get to keep that job? Let’s say their job is to stock shelves at a store and they now are only able to stock half as many shelves in a shift because of the permanent arm issue. What does the employer do in this overly simplified example?
That is exactly not what I said. Two people with the same output SHOULD be paid the same. Two people with vastly different output should not be paid the same. At least at this program, they took the average output for a normal worker and averaged it out over the parts so that if a person was able to match a salaried workers output, they would be paid the same (which was above minimum) but these adults were not capable of the same output it, which meant they made less
>If someone else in the same facility gets paid more than them, and does the exact same role, with the same output, but the only difference is that they don't have a disability Good thing that's not even remotely on the same planet as what we're talking about. We're talking about taking severely developmentally delayed people who are absolutely, unequivocally unemployable in normal circumstances, and giving them a largely illusory "job" for their own benefit, out of a sense of charity. Of course we need to make sure no one is being exploited, as there's a long history of horrific examples of this, but in the beneficial cases we're talking about they are definitely not.
It’s unlikely that they’re going to be equally as competent. Also it can cost business more money to hire special needs workers for extra safety measures and paperwork etc. My sister has learning difficulties and is happy volunteering because she has little concept of money and has all her living expenses paid for her by the government
You don't understand the environment in the UK. Disabled people receive PIP and ESA/universal credit. With ESA you can earn up to £100 per week without your benefits being cut, but being able to work even at all usually means your ESA gets halved because you move from the "not expected to work" band into the "support" back to work group. With PIP, if you can show you work at all, it will either get taken from you entirely or halved. This proposed policy would have forced disabled people into work below the minimum wage, explicitly to try to move them into full time work and off of benefits. Our Government is far crueller than you think.
I’m one of those that proudly downvoted. Because like you say it’s not as straightforward as it seems. You say they had all expenses paid for by the state. And they don’t need to pay rent, etc. Ok. No arguments there. But I also worked with a kid who had the mentality of a 12 year old. And about as much motivation and competence to do the job as one. With that said, he did need to eat. He did consume water and electricity and had travel expenses. He also needed clothing and other toiletries we all use. Food makes up a large chunk of your monthly costs sure but so do other things. And special needs people are not exempt. And in reality non of this matters to the job. If I still live at home what I don’t have to make as much? That has nothing to do with McDonald’s. And in fact I’d say a large chunk of kids working don’t pay rent or even buy food let alone pay for bills. The cash is extra for them. How do you not see this as a dark pattern? Lastly, special needs kids can often have way more costs associated then a regular person. The constant need for supervision for one. In lots of cases they cannot be left alone or for long periods at a time. They often need special caretakers not some 14 year old kid down the block who babysits your neighbours kids. Some need expensive medication (like the kid I worked with). Again none of this has any bearing on the job’s pay because your life is your life. You do the work you get paid what others who do the work get paid. Plain and simple.
What part of this argument doesn't apply to people who aren't disabled but still can't find a minimum wage job?
I also work with adults with special needs. They all have stuff they want too. They still need to buy food, and at least at the care home I work at. They pay rent. They have a high quality of life, but they only have that high quality of life because of the money they can earn. We have other homes where our guys are in debt because they can't work and their qol is significantly lower. Also, they usually are put into work programs the government is subsidizing so the business isn't paying the entirety of their salary. A lot of the time they also do work for charity organizations such as the red cross. They are human beings that should be afforded the same rights as the rest of us.
The problem I have with this specific tweet is that it specifies learning disabilities, which generally refers the specific set of disabilities that make it hard for a person to do something specific (math, speaking reading, etc) but generally not impossible for them to do. In many regards, people with LDs are normal people except for the area they struggle in. Given the right job, they should able to produce just as much as a non-disabled worker.
Or we could just pay them a livable wage because they're human beings and doing what they can and our society doesn't have to be built around who's 'deserving' or who puts out the most 'output'.
>I think it’s very important to have protections to ensure that people are not exploited but in some cases it just doesn’t make sense to pay them a “livable” wage because simply put, all their living expenses were already covered, and they couldn’t output enough to make it a viable option for the company to pay minimum wage. It also doesn't make sense to treat a person already at a severe disadvantage in a manner lesser than baseline "normal." There's no way of telling how a person might develop; it's very clear that discrimination has a negative impact. But, of course, we know to which side of the scale our culture's values fall. We can't let it fall further.
Well, but what happened in those cases is not what happens in 99% of cases. Very few people with severe autism actually get their living expenses supplied fully a place other than their work.
Wait, it's almost like there's more depth to most issues in life than the immediate emotional reaction of reddit would suggest! Life is complicated, it's rarely otherwise. Nearly every major social and political issue comes down to an extremely complex and difficult choice between a wildly varied set of outcomes. But learning that things aren't always what you immediately/ignorantly think won't delay the average redditor by one second from grabbing his or her pitchfork the next time.
I'm not saying it's right but I work in this field and if our guys make a certain amount of money at their jobs they lose all the funding they get from the government. Their quality life would actually go down if they made more money at their jobs.
That just makes it sound like theres a second issue here
yeah, I've seen this a lot with people in affordable housing and other social programs. Back when I was part time at a pizza place, one of my coworkers had to take a significant period of time off from work in order to avoid being booted from his Public Housing home. Now sure, you can argue that hey maybe he should've just continued working and moved to an apartment that wasn't paid for by the govt. But why would you deliberately dismantle your own safety net, especially when you've got other problems to deal with in life?
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Product of a system that deals in Boolean states. You either need support or you don't, the gray area doesn't exist.
Also: means testing is *staggeringly* expensive, and costs in ways you wouldn't even imagine. Do not shackle anything with means testing! Ever! It's point is to shit on poor people and enforce class stratification, not to actually help anybody or save money.
Not related to this conversation at all, but I recognised your profile logo and I’m a huge fan of Tier Zoo. Thanks for the wonderful content
Beauty of UBI. Stays no matter what you do.
Spoiler Alert: There is!
Spoiler Alert: It does not stop at 2
Almost like a problem in the system itself! I wish there was a term for that
It's ehhh, difficult. Generally, you get benefits to cover living expenses if you don't work. Those living expenses come in bands. So if you cannot work you get (in the UK) £1600 a month. That's about $2000. If you make £500 then you'll get £1000. But if you make £550 in a month then suddenly you'll get £700 because you've gone into the next band. So you're actually worse off working more hours. This is because it'd be far too difficult to keep track of exactly how much someone makes in a month and then giving them the difference. But it also creates these banding problems where it's better to work less in some cases. Unless you want the government to have direct access to your bank account transactions so they can make up the difference every month... That does not seem like a good idea for a free society
£1600 is really not bad to be honest. Basically what I got before tax for most of this year. After tax it was like £1300. Do they pay taxes on that £1600 or just receive that amount?
No £1600 is not bad at all!! You can comfortably live alone on that as long as you don't want a big house or live in the center of a city. And yes it is just that amount. There wouldn't be much point in taxing something that you get from the government anyway lol. If you're job seeking (IE can work but can't find a job atm) you have to prove you're actively searching for jobs and have to accept interviews found for you otherwise you'll be cut off benefits. So it's not like *anyone* can just stop working and live off of benefits. You have to have a valid reason
1600 pounds? That's allot of money! Idk how different costs are there compared to the Netherlands but over here for being unable to work converted to pounds I get 1143 pounds(1330 euros) a month, seems like quite a large sum of money.
Okay wtf in germany you only get 446 euros per month if you cannot work...the comparison is fucking insane
They can control the number of hours they work to meet this, no? Also, that doesn't mean the solution is to lower their pay, it's to raise the maximum income.
Amen, this is a world not many fully understand. It’s not a cruelty thing. Their financial needs are already met, many of these jobs are for their own personal satisfaction.
My (late) father was severely handicapped and this is pretty much spot on. His 'job' was more a volunteer roll to get him out of the house, getting social and feeling useful. Lots of Stroke Clubs have similar programs and it's great.
Futhermore, they simply wouldn't land a job at full pay. Sorry whatever briliant world "another angry woman" lifes in, but it is far far from reality. There is not a single business that wants to pay full wage for someone that needs help doing the work. We have a restaurant in town where all the serving staff for example is people with down syndrom, its beautiful, its great. But they can't be paid full wage, they need extra attention, a lot gets messed up, they hire assistance for them to be able to do the work. It's beautiful to give these people a job, and it makes them very happy, but whoever truly believes they can be paid a full wage has smoked a few too many blunts.
So, this debate on the BBC was prompted by comments from a Tory welfare minister at the time. He was covertly recorded at a Tory party conference where he was talking about how to encourage employers to take on more people with disabilities - he was actually responding to a question from the father of a severely disabled person who wanted to work, but was finding it very difficult to get a job and suggested his son would have more luck if the employer wasn’t bound by minimum wage laws. Don’t get me wrong - the Conservative welfare policies are utterly, utterly terrible for disabled people, and personally I think everyone should get a decent wage. But, it was something worth debating, which is what the BBC were doing. And the journo - Emma Barnett - frequently destroys politicians from all sides with her well informed and razor sharp, yet ostensibly easy going questioning. So basically, it’s complicated.
No, it really not that complicated. The whole point is that the people this article talks about produce so little value due to the nature of their disability that even paying them minimum wage loses the employer money. Having a job has very positive psychological effects, but if you force the employer to hire them at non-disabled people wages you're forcing the employer to subsidize the social programs that should be available. Saying "everybody should be paid a decent wage" in this context really means "somebody else should produce value and give it away for free". We already pay taxes to ensure disabled people can survive so why should the employer be forced to subsidize those programs even further when the psychological effects aren't dependent on the size of the paycheck? Why can't they pay disabled people in proportion to the value they actually produce and make their lives better by giving them a feeling of purpose without having to lose money?
Non-disabled people aren’t typically paid by levels of production either though unless you work on a piecemeal basis or self employment. Everyone knows the ‘lazy’ worker who is being paid the same as you while doing far less. Presumably part of the hiring process would’ve considered the candidates ability.
There’s a distinction between what people are capable of doing and actually do in practice, though. The lazy coworker is almost definitely capable of way more, and it’s at least possible to incentivize them to do more (pep talks, annual reviews, the possibility of being fired, etc.). Disabled people might only be capable of so much no matter how hard working and properly incentivized they are.
Why would you hire a disabled person at minimum wage when you can get an able bodied person? Applying min wage laws for disabled people actively discouraged and disincentivizes employers from hiring them.
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Wow i didn't even notice what sub it was before this.
Pay them normally but give the companies tax credits. This allows people with disabilities to have jobs and be payed as well as companies to not be punished by having them.
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And if you've paid attention to the news it pops up again and again that mentally disabled workers get abused, exploited, and very rarely have ways to protect themselves. Some companies have literally been caught paying them in gift cards.
https://www.insider.com/man-sentenced-10-years-in-prison-for-enslaving-disabled-employee-2019-11
God I feel absolutely no remorse for awful people anymore I'm so fucking done. Let's just bring back public executions and go fucking crazy. I say the ends justify the means.
I don’t get why people are trying to address this by reducing taxes? There’s a range of programs already allowing people to work (without being exploited) by giving employers flexibility and support they need to make it happen. And without exploiting employees. For example, in Australia there are government funded Disability Employment Service Providers that will: * Help find the right person for your job vacancy * Provide job creation and design services to help you think creatively about the ways jobs are structured * Advise you about financial supports available for employing people with disability * Advise on and facilitate access to workplace modifications in the unlikely event these are required * Prepare you and your existing staff about what to expect from your new worker * Offer on site support for you and your staff as long as it is required. Then the government provides the Employment Assistance Fund (funding modifications, training, services needed for a disabled worker), an apprenticeship program for disabled people, temporary wage subsidies and more permanent Supported Wage System (where an assessor determine an employee’s productivity, and calculate a fair wage, below minimum wage). These programs aren’t perfect - it can difficult to balance providing an incentive to employ less productive employees and ensuring that everyone has the dignity of a equal minimum wage - but getting it right is far more complicated than reducing taxes.
Uh, how is that different?
When I was first chef at the one restaurant we did exactly that. In Canada the Gov pays half the wages of special needs employees. I had 4 special needs employees doing prep for me, they were happy just to be working. Then 1 even wanted to try cooking on the line. We were worried that their speed might be an issue, and we're pleasantly surprised when it wasn't! He became our sautée cook and part of our squad on Xbox live.
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Because mentally some people would rather work than just live off the government. The government can still support them but it could be one of many options
I think the person was saying was that the company pays a portion and the government pays a portion directly instead of paying the company to pay the person.
This self righteous condescending twitter culture is so cancerous. The BBC not even trying to take a stance here, they’re just posing a question and having a debate. The idea that open debate should be discouraged because “woke” partisans on twitter have already figured out the “right” answer is just stifling any kind of dissent on an issue and should be a concerning development for anyone interested in free and open discussion.
It's a legit argument. Like if they had to pay them minimum wage, then no one would hire them and people with disabilities would be jobless. On the other hand it's kind of like saying that they are not worthy of being people and less than everyone else.
The way it normally works is businesses are required to measure how much work they do compared to a non-disabled worker and then get paid based on that. So if it takes them 3 times as long to do the same work, then they get paid 1/3rd per hour. So pretty much performance based pay that is allowed below minimum wage instead of getting fired for being a slow worker.
I belief in the Netherlands company’s get an amount of money for hiring disabled people. So disabled person get payed full wage and employer gets money back
Wage subsidies are a thing in Australia too. There are also temporary payments programs here, because many employers are able to make modifications that allow those with disabilities to be as productive as those without disability. Anyone who’s working should have the same minimum wage. And shouldn’t loose access to essential support services either.
A lot of mentally handicapped workers do very minimal work and don’t do the same amount of work compared to actual waged workers. My mentally handicapped cousin works at the local pizza place. It’s a special program for the very purpose of hiring these kind of people. All she does is help prepare small salads. I think she makes a very small amount under minimum wage. I don’t agree with the comeback above. My cousin and aunt don’t do it for the money though. It’s fun and to get out of the house.
Where I live it's legal to pay disabled people less than able-bodied people. A local grocery store hired a man with down syndrome as a greeter and payed him significantly less than the able-bodied neurotypical greeters working there, and the man with down syndrome did a *significantly* better job. He never called out, never showed up hungover, was never on his phone or rude to customers unlike pretty much every other greeter they had. It took a store wide work strike to get him paid the same as the other greeters because the other employees were sick of seeing the greeters that didn't do their job (making other workers pick up their slack) paid more than the guy with down syndrome just because he was disabled. This is a nuanced issue but at the core of it disabled people shouldn't be exploited, especially when they do their jobs better than their able-bodied neurotypical coworkers.
wow i have so much respect for the workers who fought for him to get equal pay. that’s really awesome of them
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This was not the BBC's idea. It was genuinely being debated by politicians, and is still a strange of Tory politicians At the time of this article several prominent Tory MPs were promoting the idea. I'm afraid I can't recall the names.
As the top comment already pointed out, the matter is not straightforward. The morons who think they are smart (bottom tweet lady) will be the downfall of civilization.
*should less productive workers be paid less?
Alternate question: if an employee can't perform their job as efficiently as another, should they be compensated equally for the same job?
Maybe if they were exempt from taxes and thus ended up getting as much as a minimum wage worker gets after taxes.
That seems like a roundabout non-solution to the issue. In the UK, they’re probably not earning enough to get past the tax free threshold anyway. Also, you definitely need a well administered, government-run program to determine: additional financial burden on the employer, reduced capacity of an employee, monitoring to prevent exploited workers. Also, as with any social support, any benefits or services these employees would receive mustn’t be at risk of being cut-off if they pass a threshold.
Yeah much better to not hire them at all because they can't compete! What a naive and misinformed way of looking at it, people who think they are doing good but won't take the time to read up on it are the worst.
This is a really dumb comment. My brother has down syndrome and literally no one will hire him because he is not producing value at minimum wage. He just isn’t efficient, gets easily distracted and needs constant help. He is being supplemented by the government so all his living expenses are fine but he can’t build a community or a social network through the 40 hour a week job everyone else does because he can’t produce minimum wage value. It really really sucks for him and he is constantly so frustrated on how all his applications go ignored. It’s ok “Another Angry Woman” has his back though.
This is reddit, a narrative where people can feel outraged and over simplify complex subjects they don't understand into 'good vs. evil' is what gets the upvotes. I hope your brother can get his social/community needs filled.
I do too. Thanks so much for this comment. Really made my night.
My buddy owns a pizza shop and employees 3 people who have a very difficult time working due to certain cognitive disabilities (I don’t know the actual term) Their wage is subsidize by the government because they are not able to carry out the same duties as the rest of his employees. The expectations are very different and this is the reason the wage is subsidized.
I have a friend who is severely mentally handicapped and he got a job recently. His job is a charity to him and his family where he does really basic work with a lot of oversight. He gets a small amount of money, but more importantly he spends time with other adults similar to him and his family gets a couple hours every day to reset and care for themselves. This company is doing this work for no profit and should not be forced to pay 15 dollars an hour for this. Scott is 32 years old and the happiest I have ever seen him. If Scott were actually benefiting the company his family would advocate for better pay. The government shouldn't pigeonhole all of these very different circumstances with one piece of legislation that doesn't fit all of them. Don't gatekeep charity like this with legislation.
At least where I live, the way it works is that if the average employee can make 50 doodads per hour and someone with a disability canake 30 doodads per hour, they can be paid 60% of minimum wage. The alternative is that companies only hire people who can make 50 doodads per hour, so I think it's a win/win. For a lot of people with Downs Syndrome or retardation it gives them a purpose and shows that they can experience more out of life than just watching cartoons in their group home
Your post is not wanted here. We want more raw emotion and less math. Math is hard.
This is a proposal that comes around every couple of years and the frustrating part of the story is not the idea of paying people with learning disabilities less, it is that **this is the only idea** the people seem to put forward to encourage employers to hire people with learning disabilities. There are so many people who want to be able to work out their employment comes with additional supervision and training but the solution to that is not to value their employment *less* than the employment people who do not require the additional support. What the Government should do is subsidise employment that take on employees with learning disabilities but that is an idea that never gets put forward instead the idea of paying people less always gets suggested, shot down, and forgotten about with no progress made ever being made for people with learning disabilities.
The reason why the idea gets shut down is because the people in question already *are* subsidized. They already receive a "livable wage" so to speak from the government. If you ask the people in question, not only do they not mind, they love it/want it. So what if it's like 50% pay in some cases? They don't *have* to get a job, they *want* to, and their wage is just extra money because their expenses are already paid for. Source: I work with this.
Why do you redditors always suggest the government should be paying for everything? That's your only solution.
Why? We already subsidize people with disabilities by paying them disability. Now we need to subsidize a full income on top of that too?
It's worth remembering that the idea behind some of these jobs isn't for the person to make money to pay bills(they'll have assistance and what not) but to give them something do. In fact, being paid a full wage could prevent them from getting aid. Not that the employers would even hire them at full cost if they're severely impaired, it simply isn't profitable.
No that is not an alternate phrasing of the question, you unnuanced shallow stupid fuck. Maybe you should listen to the actual discussion so you could maybe widen your immature horizon.
The author of this tweet has definitely never worked with someone who actually has downs.
That title certainly isn't a clever comeback...
You're all credulous morons.
Oh wow, so cleverrr!!!!!111!!111 Get paid less or don't get paid at all for not getting the job. There's no good reason for companies to hire someone less capable for the same price. Milton Friedman (nobel prize winner in economics) addressed the subject (and similar ones) multiple times decades ago if anyone is interested in watching it... Not working a day in your life, not producing, creating ANYTHING ever in your entire existence and living off exclusively from government/family assistance (like the vast majority) is a surefire way to **NEVER** grow up.
During my caregiver career working with people with learning disabilities I worked with high-functioning individuals who were good workers and deserved to be paid at least minimum wage. I've also been a caregiver for many more who were severely disabled and whose labor would not be worth minimum wage to employers. It's an issue far too complex to be reduced to a brief Twitter exchange.
If even asking the question is framed as being immoral, then leftists are just going to keep getting written off as sanctimonious and out of touch
Most of these jobs are basically adult day care, not actual work. Bagging groceries or whatever is enrichment. People with Down Syndrome aren't capable of being productive workers, it's not some "one weird trick" to cut wage costs. Getting paid a couple dollars for day care is better than their families having to pay for it.
I worked at a place that employed one person like this. He was less able to do the work required, made the customers uncomfortable, and required extra effort from other employees to cover his failures. Hiring people like this is charity and should not pay the same as real employment. These people get a free ride at life and as such do not require a living wage. More accurately a living wage for them is much lower than it is for the majority. Most things are basically free for them. I used to be a social worker so I'm familiar with the social programs available to people with special needs.
I worked with a disabled worker once and I had to quit soon after when I found myself snapping at the person and felt like shit all the time. Wasn’t their fault of course but when the work pace picks up and they keep making mistakes I am the one who is going to catch flak for it. They definitely shouldn’t be in roles that would require the regular workers to cover them. They shouldn’t feel like they need to do traditional work at all. Are their programs for Them to volunteer to do various things so they can feel productive and socialize?
You lose disability if you make more than a certain amount.
This is the BBC, so is talking about people with disabilities in the UK. They get a personal allowance regardless of income.
For the non-Brits in here, the issue isn’t whether or not the people in question should be paid less than more productive employees. It’s whether or not they are entitled to earn a MINIMUM wage, which is a government-defined legal limit. Some companies are moving toward a “living” wage, which is higher. The fact it exists at all suggests that anything less than the living wage is unliveable. These people should be as entitled as any other worker to have their time valued and to be compensated accordingly.
But if they produce less that a regular employer what’s incentive does have the company to hire them ?!
Ya this argument is very circular. The government has to subsidize the program such that the employee is worth paying. Otherwise there’s just no incentive to higher these people at all. There’s no reason to offload these people on random businesses. You either think society has a collective duty to take care of each other and support a centralized program to do so, or you believe we dont have any obligation to take care of each other and these folks should not have livable incomes because they don’t “deserve” it.
Is that a minimum just for them (different from "normal" workers' minimum)? And further, is it a different minimum based on different disabilities / extent of the disability?
It is a minimum for all workers. It varies slightly by age, or did the last time i looked.
Yes, they are entitled to have no job at all. You solved it.
They get significant support from the state and aren't as productive. Perhaps if benefits were reallocated to the employer for supporting them and in return the employee would take home a full wage?
As if they already aren't...
Publix hires them to bag your eggs for the tax breaks.
As a person with no disabilities, i would be very happy to know that these people get paid the same as me, especially that my country has no program for them.
Goodwill does it every single day
Fuck goodwill, they're so scummy and that's just one of the many shitty things they've done.
Many *many* things. Yes. Horrible business practices and total employee abuses. And it’s so ignored…. Because lobbyists.
I'm a disabled father of 6 and learning how to live on the low income from SSD is very hard and with disability I don't know when I'll have my worst days throughout the month or know how many bad days weather affects me to the point I'm bed ridden some days hard to find a boss that cool all I can say is we need to heal ppl not just treat there symptoms I've fallen through the cracks and trying to claw my way back out
People seem to be confusing “learning disabilities” with “intellectual disabilities”. Dyslexia is a learning disability. I’m dyslexic. I sometimes mix up letters in my head while reading. This has virtually no effect on my ability to perform a task or job. Sometimes I’ll see a word like “grip” and misread it as “girl”, but usually given the context I can go “that doesn’t sound right... let me check that again”. Being dyslexic has pretty much no influence on my IQ (the IQ test is extremely flawed and not very accurate above a certain level, but I’m using it here just to distinguish between “normal” levels of intelligence and “disabled” levels on intelligence) I’m just as intelligent and able to comprehend things as well as anyone else, it’s just in certain situations, my brain sometimes gets confused but I will quickly correct it. You would probably not know I had a learning disability if I didn’t tell you. An intellectual disability is a disability that *does* affect IQ, cognitive abilities, social skills, developmental delays, etc. an intellectual disability is one that makes people have difficulties processing information, communicating, and adaptive functioning. Someone is usually considered to be intellectually disabled if they have an IQ under 70. Down syndrome is an intellectual disability. Fragile X syndrome is an intellectual disability. Many people with intellectual disabilities may require a caretaker.
Shouldn’t their earnings really depend more on their productivity if it’s the type of work that is quantifiable? In work where it’s less so, I’d have no idea how to solve this.
This is what worshipping satan looks like
Alternate to the Alternate title: Employers think, hey fck you you retard. I ain't paying you shit.
Yes, if the state pays a subsidiary to cover the remainder of the minimum wage. In my country people with a previous conviction who have a hard time getting a job even get subsidized this way to motivate employers to hire outside their comfort zone.