COLUMBIA, SC – There were people in South Carolina who were legally getting paid as little as five cents an hour until not long ago.
But now, after years of work, there is a rule that stops that from happening.
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, employers who have a waiver approved by the U.S. Department of Labor can legally pay workers with disabilities less than the federal minimum wage, which is currently $7.25 an hour. A worker with a disability is someone “whose earning or productive capacity is impaired by age, physical or mental deficiency, or injury.”
South Carolina, on the other hand, is the 13th state in the country to ban this practice.
If you make less than the minimum wage, Sandy Jordan, Vice President and Chief Community Integration Program Officer at Able South Carolina, said, “You’ll be on government aid programs, you’ll be poor, and you won’t be able to get out of it.”
A statewide group called Able South Carolina works to help disabled South Carolinians. In 2021, they found that about 4,000 people in the state were working in “sheltered workshops” and other places where they could make as little as a few cents or dollars an hour.
Our team saw things like rolling silverware for restaurants, and Mary Alex Kopp, Vice President and Chief Public Relations Officer for Able South Carolina, said that not everyone has those kinds of skills. “And they can’t work on that if they have to go into a building, sit at a table every day, and roll their silverware.”
In South Carolina, Gov. Henry McMaster signed the bill that got rid of the subminimum wage allowance into law in 2022.
A task force, on the other hand, has been working for the past two years to help the thousands of people who worked in these places find regular jobs or other options.
Director of Disability Rights South Carolina Beth Franco said, “We’ve seen that people with disabilities are taking advantage of this chance to do other things.”
The phase-out time ended at the beginning of August. From now on, it is against the law in South Carolina to pay a worker less than the minimum wage.
He said, “It’s a pretty progressive bill for South Carolina and puts us on the map to show other southern states that this is possible.”
A new “Employment First Commission” will soon be set up as part of the law to carry on the work of the task force and help more disabled people find work.
Franc said, “We still have work to do.” Our work isn’t done yet, but this is a huge step forward for disabled people in South Carolina.
Disability rights groups say that since South Carolina passed this law more than two years ago, more states have also passed laws to stop paying workers less than the minimum wage.