by Meriah Nichols, Unpacking Disability, and DREDF Board Member
My mind wandered all over the map after reading Andrew Pulrang’s recent article for Forbes, outlining four keys ways President Biden’s proposed American Jobs Plan could benefit the disability community. I encourage you to read his article, because he dives deep into some excellent disability-related applications for Biden’s plan.
Specifically, I thought about the employment piece for quite a while.
Ending subminimum wage is on my radar, both as a career counselor with an interest in equity, and as a mother of a tween with Down syndrome. Like most issues in our communities, ending sub-minimum wages is thorny, multi-faceted, and can create something of a domino effect. Remove the piece of sub-minimum wages, and about five other dominos representing other issues will also need to be adjusted to prevent all the pieces from toppling over.
This is not to say that I don’t think sub-minimum wages should be removed; I do. I’m simply not certain which should come first – removing those wages or restructuring supplemental security income wage limits? Or what about changing job training programs or the way that Vocational Rehabilitation or the educational system is set up? And what about universal health care – doesn’t that need to come first?
The problem, like I said, is multi-faceted.
Without universal health care in place, many people with Intellectual Disabilities (ID) and/or Developmental Disabilities (DD) need to receive their health care through Medicare. Many also receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI), which is linked to their health care. SSI is always minimal, a very basic subsistence-level financial net. Medicare is also a very basic, subsistence-level medical care net. Both SSI and Medicare have very strict rules regarding income and assets.
The rules that SSI and Medicare adhere to include caps on earned income, and asset limits. People who receive SSI and/or Medicare are right to hesitate to earn more than the earned income cap: if they earn beyond that, they will be kicked off the system, but rarely is their job able to provide enough financial or medical security for them to make that leap. Added to that, it can be very difficult, if not impossible, to get back on benefits once you have been removed, and if one were to have a medical emergency after being removed, it could very well bankrupt a family.
The American Jobs Plan wants to revisit care in general, and that could connect well with these pieces, if we advocate for them. Also, the plan seeks to create small business incubators and innovation hubs. In theory, these would tie in nicely with revisiting sheltered workshops that run off sub-minimum wages, and re-thinking what currently exists for people with ID/DD by way of employment. And that with that, I also mean, REALLY re-think it. Parents in the Down syndrome community know firsthand that our kids are often highly creative, out-of-the-box thinkers and doers, for whom having their own small business often makes perfect sense. Traditional paths for employment of people with ID/DD have followed the “Four F’s” (working in food, filth, flowers or factories); this is long overdue for change.
The American Jobs Plan has a lot of potential, as it seeks to dynamically transform work as we know it in the United States of America. Work can be both a necessity and a pleasure. It gives many of us human beings a sense of satisfaction, a place of belonging. It forms part of our identity; it nudges us in new directions, helps us form new goals and ways of living. It provides for us, not just in the literal monetary sense, but in an emotional and psychological sense. Work can even be a spiritual, a way to worship, service in action. It can give an individual a sense of purpose.
All humans deserve this if they so desire. I’m glad this plan would be a way for more people to participate in work, but passage of the law itself would only be the beginning of necessary reforms. Or to paraphrase a now common phrase first used in the 14th century, the proof is in the application.
On June 22, in perhaps a sign of things to come, California Senate Bill 639 – which would eliminate subminimum wages for disabled workers in the state – passed through the Labor & Employment Committee. If it becomes law, California would be the tenth U.S. state to enact similar legislation. This vote occurred twenty-two years to the day in which the United States Supreme Court upheld lower court rulings with the landmark Olmstead v. L.C. decision, which stated explicitly that “unnecessarily segregating” people with disabilities violates Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The American Jobs Plan, if it passes, takes this philosophy one step further by actually allocating $400 billion to support disabled Americans living – and working – in our communities. Ending subminimum wages for disabled workers seems like a logical, if not necessary, next step, but as always, success will depend largely on involvement of the disability community to make sure enactment of the plan is truly in line with what we know we need.
Meriah Hudson Nichols is originally from a sheep ranch in Cloverdale, California, but grew up in countries around the Pacific Basin. She studied education, human resource development, training, and project management and spent over twenty years in careers with connections with her degrees. As a deaf woman, mother of a child with Down syndrome and daughter of a woman with fibromyalgia, she is passionate about disability rights, education and employment. In her spare time she writes, takes photos, paints and travels.