Policy

As a final project for her Spring Fellowship, Policy Fellow Emily Snodderly wrote and delivered this policy speech examining the practice of paying subminimum wages to people with disabilities.

In 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act created the federal minimum wage, but it included an exception for people with disabilities. The exception was intended to preserve employment opportunities for people, especially wounded veterans, who couldn’t keep up with “normal production” in factories. Now, 85 years later, thanks to this law, an estimated 53,000 workers in the United States earn less than minimum wage, sometimes pennies per hour, solely because they have a disability.

This is the typical experience of a worker with a disability earning subminimum wage. We’ll call her Janet. Janet is a 35-year-old woman with an intellectual disability. For the last 15 years, she has worked in something called a sheltered workshop. Like Janet, all her coworkers have some sort of disability. For 10 hours a week, they sort and package products like jewelry or soap. Every 6 months, Janet’s supervisor times how fast she works in order to justify her current wage. She earns $4 an hour–about average for sheltered workshop employees. After an entire year of sorting and packaging the same way every day, Janet has earned a grand total of $2,000.

Oftentimes, when I first tell someone about subminimum wage employment, their reaction is positive. They say, “Isn’t that a good thing? If employers can pay lower wages, it incentivizes them to hire people with disabilities. Plus, people who couldn’t otherwise get a job get the satisfaction of having a job.” However, this perspective is based on two false assumptions. [continue reading…]

Many Americans with and without disabilities use fixed-route transportation like a city bus or commuter rail to reach their desired destination. However, people with disabilities may need additional transportation assistance to reach destinations beyond traditional public transportation routes. Public transit authorities provide paratransit services for eligible persons with disabilities if they cannot safely travel short distances to a bus stop. For instance, minibuses are used for these purposes. However, there can be issues with the timeliness of these services and the limited distance that is covered.

Federal law requires city transportation authorities to provide paratransit for eligible people with disabilities within three-quarters of a mile of the fixed route of a city bus or commuter rail. Transportation authorities are not required to provide paratransit services beyond these limits but may extend services. This regulation aims to enable people with disabilities to reach their destinations safely but creates challenges depending on the location. [continue reading…]

Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month

In celebration of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, RespectAbility recognizes the contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) to our society.

According to the Annual Disability Statistics Compendium, there are 18,814,944 Asian Americans living in the United States. Out of that number, 1,454,941 have disabilities. The states with the largest population of Asian Americans with disabilities are California and New York, which have 509,446 and 131,682 of AAPI with disabilities in residence, respectively.

A 2021 report from the New American Economy research fund found that the AAPI community is the fastest-growing minority group in the United States. In the last decade, the AAPI community grew by 25.5%, contributing to about 20% of the total population growth in the country. In 2019, AAPI households brought in $783.7 billion and were able to contribute $167.9 billion in federal taxes, and $72.5 billion in state taxes. However, according to the same report, the AAPI community still had about $543.4 billion in purchasing power after taxes.

This is the very definition of a growing and thriving community, and yet it is clear that stigma and bias continue to result in under-diagnosis of disabilities in the community, leading to gaps in outcomes. [continue reading…]

Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (AANHPI) students are the least likely of all races to receive special education services. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, about 15% of all public school students are in special education, compared to only 8% of Asian American students. The gap is less drastic for Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander students at 12%, but it is still significant. This gap means it is very likely that AANHPI students who would benefit from special education services are not receiving them.

Previous research and opinion articles have blamed this discrepancy on AANHPI families’ resistance to special education due to stigmas about disability. They argue that disability is often seen as a weakness in AANHPI culture, which may cause students or their parents to hide the disability. While this may be true in some AANHPI families, we cannot assume that this is the primary explanation. When we buy into the culture-blaming narrative, we miss critical structural factors preventing AANHPI students from accessing the education they need, including racial discrimination and language barriers. [continue reading…]

The intersection of identity with disability uniquely affects people of all races. For Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) this is compounded by the fact that AAPIs are a wildly diverse ethnic group and have an equally diverse range of experiences. With a population expected to surpass 40 million by 2060, and 1.3 million disabled, it is important to understand the intersection between AAPI identity and the disability experience. There is no better time to address these issues than in May while we observe AAPI Heritage Month. Historically AAPIs, especially AAPIs with disabilities, have been underrepresented in disability studies. Surveys on disability often lump this diverse group together as “Asian,” which includes 20 distinct nationalities in the US Census. Despite the size and vibrancy of the AAPI population, the visibility of AAPIs with disabilities remains low. Disclosure of disability is essential for access to services, and yet disclosure among AAPIs is lower than in other ethnic groups.

Reticence to disclose a disability in the AAPI community can be due to the internalization of harmful stereotypes. One of the most pervasive of these stereotypes is the “model minority” myth, in which AAPIs are described as being more smart, successful, or hardworking than other minority groups. This idealized image is limiting, can create a divide between AAPIs and other minority groups, and does not allow room for the disability experience. The “model minority” myth masks or disguises the disability experience of AAPIs and has contributed to a lack of research and debate about this issue. The social pressures of conformity may also increase the reticence of individuals to disclose disability status. This can reduce access to medical assistance, employment accommodations, and other disability services. Once disabled AAPIs do gain access to disability services, some—particularly those who are first or second-generation immigrants—encounter language barriers that can further reduce their access to services, a problem that is only amplified by lack of culturally competent service providers. [continue reading…]

In this month’s partner spotlight, we look at the fantastic work the Asian Americans with Disabilities Initiative (AADI) is doing. AADI seeks to bring a haven for Asian Americans with disabilities online and in person.

AADI came about when Founder and Executive Director, Jennifer Lee, began recognizing and understanding her disability while grappling with the anti-Asian hate that rose during the COVID pandemic.

Young Asian Americans with disabilities drive AADI, including former RespectAbility Entertainment and News Media Fellow Dennis Tran, who is on Jennifer’s team as a Directory Manager on their External Relations Committee. [continue reading…]

March was a particularly a strong month for our policy department, both in terms of teaching and networking.

On March 3, Senior Policy Advisor Matan Koch taught more than 50 workforce professionals how to advocate for disability inclusion in their work places using the business case. You can watch that webinar and download the fully accessible presentation on RespectAbility’s website.

Wally Tablit and Peter Bernick, Assistant Professor at Nagasaki University

A few days later, Wally Tablit, our Senior Director of Policy and Workforce Development, was honored to have presented at the 38th Annual Pacific Rim International Conference on Disability and Diversity on March 6 and 7 in Honolulu, HI. The event was hosted by the Center on Disability Studies College of Education, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Immediately after the Pacific Rim Conference, Wally presented at the 1st Annual Hawaiian Employment First Summit in Honolulu on March 8, presented by the HI Chapter of APSE (Association of People Supporting Employment First). These two events gathered several hundred people from all over the Pacific Rim region. Wally made connections with people from Japan, New Zealand, Hawaii, and more. [continue reading…]

Our nation’s workforce system is a crucial aspect of the economy. It consists of many organizations, laws, and programs that connect people to jobs. But one significant component of the modern workforce system is in need of reauthorization.

The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014, or WIOA, combined more than a dozen workforce development programs under a single legislative roof. Each program served one population with a barrier to employment, such as veterans, at-risk youth, or people with disabilities. The idea behind WIOA was that one integrated workforce program would be stronger and more effective than several isolated programs. The integrated workforce program serves all clients, regardless of which barrier(s) to employment they face. It is also subject to updated standards for performance and transparency.

The initial WIOA funding expired in 2020, but Congress has included funds in the budget every year since then. Some representatives have tried to officially re-authorize WIOA to ensure funding stability and make improvements to the legislation. In 2022, the House passed a WIOA re-authorization bill along party lines. The bill never made it through the Senate.

When considering the ideal form in which to reauthorize WIOA, we need to answer two questions: Is WIOA working as intended? If not, how can we improve it? The answer to these questions is found by examining the successes of WIOA as it relates to people with disabilities, and analyzing the causes in those places where the goals were not met. [continue reading…]

This month’s Data Corner again examines the tracking data of National Trends In Disability Employment (nTIDE). In March 2023, the labor force participation rate for people with disabilities yet again set an all-time high of 40.2% compared to 37.8% in March 2022. This is encouraging as it means the gap is narrowing between workers with and without disabilities. Workers without disabilities also experienced an uptick in the labor force participation rate, which rose from 77.2% in March 2022 to 77.6% in March 2023.

Likewise, the employment-to-population ratio for people with disabilities rose from 34.1% in March 2022 to 36.6% in March 2023. For those without disabilities, the employment-to-population ratio increased from 74.5% to 74.9%. [continue reading…]