The sub-minimum wage model fails to provide adequate training or employment to disabled workers. Data shows that less than five percent of the four-hundred thousand workers with disabilities in segregated sub minimum wage workshops will transition into competitive integrated work. Moreover, research shows that the sub-minimum wage model costs more but actually produces less! In fact, workers must unlearn the useless skills they acquire in order to obtain meaningful employment. It is poor policy to reward such failed programs with wage exemptions, preferential federal contracts, and public and charitable contributions. In fact, disabled persons should be treat with maximum of efficiency. They didn't choose to be what they are; so, congress or states doesn't need to lower their wage. After more than seventy-five years of demonstrated failure, it is time to invest in proven, effective models for employment. Section sustains the same segregated sub-minimum wage environments that existed in 1938 and has proven to be extremely ineffective and offers no incentive for mainstream employers to hire people with disabilities. The Employment First Movement promotes new concepts such as “supported” or “customized” employment that are successful at producing competitive integrated employment outcomes for individuals with significant disabilities that were previously thought to be unemployable. The Transitioning to Integrated and Meaningful Employment Act will responsibly phase out Section over a three-year period and will eventually repeal the antiquated and discriminatory practice of paying people with disabilities sub-minimum wages. Americans with disabilities will no longer be trapped in segregated sub-minimum wage workshops. Current service providers will have three years to transition to a proven competitive integrated training and employment business model that assists individuals with even the most significant disabilities obtain real jobs at real wages.
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