Thursday, December 31, 2009
Federal law permits businesses to pay employees who are mentally retarded pennies an hour, a reality that has sparked a new debate at care homes in Iowa. An investigation by the Des Moines Register discovered that more than 300 mentally disabled people have been paid less than minimum wage—about 60 cents an hour—to work at state-run homes for the disabled. One worker made as little as 11 cents an hour working for a company, Oriental Trading Co., owned by The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s richest private equity firms.
Companies that pay less than federal minimum wage must apply for certification status with the U.S. Department of Labor, which maintains a public list on its website. Nationwide there are about 425,000 disabled Americans working for non-profits, government agencies and for-profit companies for less than the minimum wage. More than half are paid less than $2.50 an hour and about 98,000 are paid less than a dollar an hour.
Advocates for the disabled argue it’s time to eliminate the special exemption for mentally diabled workers, claiming the low wages amount to exploitation. But one head of an Iowa-based care home says without the exemption, the workers wouldn’t have jobs.
“It is part of a person’s self-esteem,” said Woodward Superintendent Jim Finch. “Oftentimes, I’ll go down to the payroll office when our clients come in and start picking up their checks on payday, on Friday. And, you know, whether it’s 50 cents or $300, they are just so excited. They want to show you their checks and show you that they get paid for doing work. It’s a big morale booster.”
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Disabled Workers Paid Cents Per Hour at State-Run Homes (by Clark Kauffman, Des Moines Register)
Wage and Hour Division (U.S. Department of Labor)
Comments