Ending Hunger in America, 2014 Hunger Report Full Report | Page 113

CHAPTER 3
hours, or even less. If they were to earn enough to put them above the poverty line, they would
lose some of their benefits. Workers with disabilities are often described as the “last hired,
first fired.”53 The Great Recession and subsequent weak recovery bore this out: workers with
disabilities experienced higher rates of job loss and gained jobs back at a slower pace than
nondisabled workers.54 In 2007, before the start of the Great Recession, 19.5 percent of DI
recipients and 12.6 percent of SSI recipients held jobs of some kind. But altogether, just 2.9
percent earned more than $10,000.55 People with disabilities should have better options than
benefits that aren’t enough to live on or a job that doesn’t pay enough to live on either.

Able to Work
In 2012, the National Council on Disability issued a report documenting the scope of
the practice of paying subminimum wages to disabled workers in “sheltered workshops.”
Currently about 425,000 workers, mainly people with
intellectual and developmental disabilities, are working
in sheltered workshops.56 Labor law exempts employers
from having to pay them the minimum wage—workers
may be paid a dollar an hour or even less.57 The work
takes place in segregated settings (thus the term “sheltered”) and consists of repetitive tasks, such as filling
bubble gum machines or packing boxes. The tasks are
performed day after day, year after year.
In 2009 and 2010, 60 men with disabilities in Iowa
were being paid 41 cents an hour58 to work for Henry’s
Turkey Farm. Their employer was also their “caretaker,” deducting rent from their pay to house them in
a bunkhouse leased from the city of Atalissa, Iowa. This
sheltered workshop made national news when the Des
Moines Register uncovered evidence that workers were
forced to live in roach-infested housing and subjected
to other abuses.
The Social Security Administration defines a sheltered workshop as “a private non-profit, state, or local
government institution that provides employment
opportunities for individuals who are developmentally, physically, or mentally impaired, to prepare for
gainful work in the general economy.”59 In most cases,
however, workers are never prepared for employment
in the general economy or transitioned out of the
sheltered setting. According to the National Disability
Rights Network, “Rarely, if ever, does a person with
a disability request to work in a sheltered workshop,
but they end up working in a sheltered or segregated
environment simply because it was presented as the
only option.”60
www.bread.org/institute?

About 8 in 10 people
with a disability were
not in the labor force
in 2012, compared with
about 3 in 10 persons
with no disability.

Richard Lord

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