Alternate alternate headline. Are disabled people, people?
If minimum wage was a wage that a single income earners could support an entire household on, as it was original intended still, I might get this argument. With minimum wage being an unlivable joke, paying less is essentially slavery and textbook exploitative.
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I think for a lot of people it’s about having some place to go during the day that they don’t have to pay for. If someone is unable to work a regular minimum wage job but is able to do simple tasks it could be either be stay at home and do nothing everyday or having either the government or the family pay for care. This allows a company to provide the supervision and a place for safe social interaction. People in these programs get to feel like an actual member of society rather than just a burden on their family. They can have something to do all day and come home and talk about their day at work instead of what they watched on TV. It’s unfortunate that they can’t provide enough value to justify a company to pay minimum wage but at least this way they get to have some money to help their family with bills or spend on their hobbies.
That’s why you pay them minimum wage or more and get a kickback from the government, that ends up being cheaper for everyone in the long run and you’re not exploiting them.
It’s unfortunate that they can’t provide enough value to justify a company to pay minimum wage
What’s unfortunate is when people don’t understand that everyone, even mentally disabled persons, deserves a living wage at minimum.
No one is paid based on the actual “value” they provide to a company. If that were the case, CEOs would be paid a fraction of what they’re currently paid, and the lowest paid workers would make multiple times more than what they currently make.
I agree CEO compensation is really messed up but I don’t thinks it’s really relevant. A company gets to decide how much they value labour and if someone’s work isn’t enough to justify paying them they simply won’t have a job. I know it’s awful to pay less than a living wage but it’s important to remember these people are almost universally living with their family or in group homes. The options are really only either they don’t work or they work with a company paying less than minimum wage. Obviously the government subsidizing the wages is an option but I’m not sure if that’s the best use of resources. Would it not make more sense to directly subsidize families and group homes based on economic need.
The alternative is that they will never have any job at all, and they might not be happy living on handouts.
The alternative is they get paid just as much as everyone else, receive some extra cash from the government because being disabled can carry big hidden costs most people don’t realize.
The insensitive for the business is a tax break so the disabled worker does cost them less overall, they NEED this extra bit of what otherwise would be tax money to make reasonable changes to integrate the peoples special needs. After which its easier to hire more disabled people meaning more tax breaks.
Gonna take a personal stance that if 80% of your workers are officially disabled you shouldn’t need to pay tax at all. Helping these people is enough contributing to society to be ethical.
This isn’t a perfect system but its similar to how many countries do it and its miles better then forcing them into wageslavery.
Paying the disabled worker less is a complete upside down work because they have to work so much harder to get the same result. Remember your wage isn’t just a reflection of your output, otherwise it wouldn’t be an hourly rate. Its a reflection of the time and energy your body is putting into it every day.
Why this is even a “debate”
I see you have a couple of straw-men responding to you, so I’ll try answer with a real world actual answer from my own lived experience.
I used to know a guy, who I’ll call Dave. Dave had some major developmental disabilities, like major major ones. At the time I first met him, my country had a law similar to this one being debated here, and Dave was employed for about half of minimum wage to push a broom around a carpentry workshop. It was the first and only time in his life that he’d ever earned a wage, and there was an unsaid understanding among the crew that Dave was doing would otherwise be a couple minutes work for them. Everyone loved him because he was so happy, and always wanting to help.
Dave was so proud of being part of the team, and he kept the place incredibly tidy, tidier than I’ve ever seen any other tradie’s workshop. (Also - it’s important context that over here we have good social safety nets, so Dave didn’t need the money to survive, he had government benefits and a full time carer).
Then the law was revoked - suddenly the guy owning the business had to choose between paying Dave or getting a full time qualified apprentice. So he did what he had to do.
There isn’t a happy ending to this story. Health and safety meant that you couldn’t have an unpaid non-worker running around a workshop, and Dave was never able to come back - even though he’d have been happy to stay unpaid just to be part of the team. And a couple years later, my work happened to take me to a small government -owned townhouse, which turned out to be Dave’s. His carer recognised me, but I didn’t recognise Dave. He was a sad empty shell of the person I once knew; he’d lost his purpose, his armchair literally had the cartoon-style outline of his body because he was there so often, and I was told he hadn’t left the house for more than six months, even for a walk around the block.
It’s possible to both protect disadvantaged workers from exploitation, while also giving inducements to businesses so that it’s worth hiring people who otherwise wouldn’t be hireable. We had that here! And when we lost it, Dave lost his purpose and the only part of his life that had ever given him meaning.