Goodwill Slavery

Posted on April 7, 2016 in Campaign 2016 Class Stigma

We’ve heard a lot about the dismal minimum wage of $7.25 in this country. Sanders has called for a $15 federal minimum wage and Clinton for a $12 wage with the call for local communities and states to set it at $15 or higher on their own. Only Ms. Clinton, however, has noticed a segment of our population who makes less than the minimum wage thanks to an act purported to “help” them: the disabled.

If you have a mental illness or a physical disability, you are screwed under the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act. That is when the minimum wage for the disabled was set at $0.00. That is right, there is no minimum wage for people like me and you. Fortune Magazine describes the reasoning:

Congress passed the original legislation 76 years ago because it “rightfully felt that these individuals had the desire to be part of the fabric of America,” says Anil Lewis, director of advocacy and policy for the National Federation of the Blind. But that was a different time; when “discrimination was inevitable because service systems were based on a charity model, rather than empowerment and self-determination and when societal low expectations for people with disabilities colored policy making,” the National Council on Disability says.

This is what allows organizations such as Goodwill to give its workers subminimum pay. Hillary Clinton has noticed the problem (Senator Sanders seems to be ignorant of it) and promises to do something about it. We deserve the right to be able to support ourselves whether we are blind or deaf or mentally ill. Currently, we don’t get the same $7.25 that everyone else gets. The message becomes we are not able. This is nonsense.

If we can do the work, then we deserve the fair wage. No more should we be an underpaid slave class for nonprofits. It is time to join Hillary Clinton in her call for fairness for all. We have the right to be self-sufficient.