Themes, benefits and challenges

Discussion

Task force members considered benefits and challenges under the categories of people with disabilities, families and supports, community, and employers and service providers. They also noted if any new categories emerged. The only new category that emerged was “funding, systems and policies” under the challenges area.

The members reported out the benefits and challenges that they documented to the entire task force but did not have sufficient time to discuss the themes the groups identified. Management Analysis and Development (MAD) consultants organized the information from the small group discussions into themes. The themes are presented under the Benefits and Challenges tabs.

Benefits

Benefits of eliminating subminimum wages generally differed across audiences. Positive economic impacts at the person and community levels was a theme that cut across categories. Additionally, benefits to well-being for people, businesses, other employees and the community was another theme mentioned across categories.

People with disabilities

Job-related: Skills improvement and job satisfaction

• Employment that matches skills and interests
• Odds improved they will find a job that will match talents and interests
• Improved opportunities for skills and training
• Better job satisfaction
• Job interest and quality of life advances when work matches skills and is meaningful
• Earning a competitive wage

Increased independence/autonomy/self-esteem

• Allows people to see a greater possibility for themselves – away from culture of leaving education to a facility to instead making meaningful choices about careers and education
• Sense of pride in the work you are doing
• Demonstrate capacity and strength and worth
• Increased income for independence, quality of life, having a family
• More freedom in life
• Less reliance on other public benefits

Engagement and belonging/inclusion

• Relationships that can be gained with coworkers, managers, people in community
• People with disabilities, not separate from society but part of society
• Broader engagement in community
• Integration, belonging, citizenship
• Inclusion in workplace, paid similarly
• Eliminate separate but equal energy
• Increased integration and inclusivity for people with disabilities

Related to systemic change

• Less reliance on formal service delivery system
• Not just funneled into the pathway
• Make progress toward ending systemic poverty

Community perspective

• Showing what is possible (peer-to-peer) for people earning competitive wages
• Changes community perspectives; seeing the worth and importance of people with disabilities
• It lifts up the entire group of people with disabilities – no one paid subminimum wages

Civil rights/legal aspect

• Having civil rights improves self-acceptance
• Expanded civil rights, increased equity
• Compliance with the law, with Olmstead, most integrated setting possible
• Protection from being taken advantage of, for example by wage theft

Employers and service providers

Better situation for employers

• Improved financial situation for employees with disabilities (better Medicaid reimbursement for people with disabilities)
• Take pressure off providing certain types of services (only option is competitive employment)
• Access to state grants such as the DHS reinvention grants and technical assistance for grants
• Better job satisfaction for those providing the support
• Gives employers the opportunity to learn more about providers, too (Working with providers to employ people)

Reduction in costs and infrastructure associated with 14(c) certificate program

• 14(c) is highly regulated and service providers have to spend a lot of resources in talent and time and bureaucracy with 14(c) employment
• 14(c) certificate is a burden, eliminates that burden
• Paperwork and documentation reduction (related to 14(c) certificate), cost savings
• Simply supporting someone on the job, so don’t have the sheltered workshop costs
• Less physical infrastructure

Benefits other employees and organization wellbeing, helps organization “do the right thing”

• My presence in the workplace benefits other people – creates awareness and understanding and changed views of others about what is possible with a disability (understanding more about accessibility)
• Hiring people with disabilities helps employers reflect the community, reflect diversity, equity, inclusion and flexibility
• A more diverse organization is a more successful organization
• Benefit for employer to offer employees: An eye on what success can look like for families who may have a member with a disability
• Weed out the providers who do not believe people with disabilities are equal
• Aligning themselves better with disability justice movements

More employees for labor force

• Employers learning about and benefiting from an untapped pool of talent
• With tight labor market, employers need people to fill their open positions, so this is a business solution to business needs
• Less pressure to find staff
• May open more opportunity for provider to be offering job supports (for example, job coaching) with a shift to community-based employment, so more job support employment with the provider creates more employment for the community

Increased flexibility/creativity

• Capability to be creative
• It increases the creativity and customization factor
• Allows for flexibility for understanding production
• Allows more creativity and satisfaction for all employees
• Allows more flexibility than 14(c) work
• In our system with its focus on production, creates an awareness that you can get to outcomes in different ways

Families and supports

Financial perspective – increased income and less need for supports

• More money coming into household
• Less reliance on other public benefits
• Could benefit you by increasing the amount you qualify for from Social Security
• Family worries about income are addressed to some extent with increased earned income – security and safety from sustainable income
• Relieves burden of having to supply dollars to people with disabilities
• Encourages independence and freedom and lower need for supports
• Less reliance on parents and guardians

Less worry and stress for families

• Freedom for parents or guardians to not have to worry about the person with disabilities
• Less stress and worry when family member with disability enjoys doing something meaningful and doing what matters to them
• (We underestimate how) having the appropriate support for people with disabilities means fewer challenges and difficulties for them
• People are safer in integrated employment settings

More positive situation for their loved one

• Parents want the best for their children – and this provides more dreams, planning, future, possibilities
• Jobs supports: Knowing that a person with a disability is doing something meaningful transforms the job support work. (Power in providing support to live best life – a positive)
• Families want to make sure their family members are integrated as much as possible into the community – not a separate project outside of employment
• Widens the net of support for person within community

Elevated expectations

• Raised expectations (people will see the capacity that workers have to do something different)
• Sets up expectation for career and career pathway (moving forward vs. staying at one place)

Community

Economic impact

• New businesses potentially for communities
• Better economically – more people earning and spending money in the community
• More taxpayers
• More workers available in a workforce shortage
• Better for business outcomes
• More workers
• Really about economic impact in the state

Improved awareness

• Raised expectations (people will see the capacity that workers have to do something different)
• Awareness
• Challenges ableist beliefs and stereotypes

Increases community wellbeing

• Increased capability to meet DEI goals
• Stronger when there’s a holistic representation of the community – improves community wellbeing
• Broader engagement
• Inclusion on a broader scale increases accessibility
• Diverse communities are healthy
• Representation matters
• Integration

Challenges

Challenges to eliminating subminimum wages generally differed across audiences. However, task force members identified three primary challenge:

• Supports: Challenges in getting needed supports for employees and employers and having enough supports.
• Lack of information from various perspectives: Lack of information for people with disabilities and their families on competitive integrated employment and lack of information for employers on hiring people with disabilities.
• Ableism/negative perception: Perceptions of employees with disabilities as a major barrier to competitive integrated employment

People with disabilities

Fear of unknown/unfamiliarity/lack of information

• Leaving a comfort zone – not wanting to leave a place they like
• End of familiarity for person with disabilities
• Fear of change, not knowing what it is going to look like
• Lack of experience to base decisions on
• Lack of accurate information on how integrated employment works in their lives
• Taking on more individual responsibility
• People aware of failures with community employment and wanting to avoid that by working in an in-house environment
• Those working under 14(c) tend to be older and in highly supported environments, so they are really accustomed to that and there is fear about ending it, with change, the need to confront issues and learning all seen as significant challenges.

Pressure from family

• Guardian and conservatorship (lack of control over decision-making)
• Experiencing pressure from families not to change their employment situation

Decrease in supports or challenges in getting supports needed

• Transportation to and from a workplace (especially in greater Minnesota)
• Transportation: A significant barrier that needs to be addressed in the plan, especially in rural areas
• Dramatic decrease in supports
• Hassle factor: It can be hard to work through wage and benefit issues
• Accommodations: A challenge to secure accommodations. (Example: Parking garage issues even with the law on her side)
• Need support in navigating the system and for the burden put on people with disabilities.
• Be aware of preferences for people with disabilities and honor them – an approach that is person-centered

Ableism/perception of employees with disabilities

• Are people with disabilities welcomed, beyond accessibility? Spaces can be made accessible but not welcoming. Accessibility is more than what’s covered under the ADA and it’s not a box to check. Being welcomed and valued in a space is different from simply being allowed to be there
• Internalized ableism (people believe the narrative that others have about them)
• Externalized ableism (people supporting them don’t think they can do the work)
• Person with disabilities encounter ableism – and will face that in community employment just by being in public (stressful!)
• Fighting to work, fighting to survive
• People with disabilities are seen as less – and are up against that ableism from the get-go and have to work three times as hard as anyone else

Concern about higher wages affecting benefits

• The impact of benefits through higher wages (for example, reduced Social Security benefits)
• Assumption that the setting and supports will change
• Worry is that higher income will affect benefits – a legitimate concern but not true in many cases. (A concern with disability benefits)

Job-related concerns

• Employment numbers are low for people with disabilities – unemployment/underemployment
• Matching skills and interests with job openings and employment
• Benefit systems not set up to be as responsive as a worker with a disability needs it to be, not set up to allow the person to earn a competitive wage

Employers and service providers

Cost

• More money, more cost, insufficient reimbursement for cost
• Cost of transition in general

Hard to change business model/approach

• Change is hard
• Reluctance to change business model (lack of willingness to try)
• The change will interrupt the flow of how they run their businesses – and are they willing to let that happen?
• For providers, fear of the unknown (businesses that are contracting, moving to a different business model)
• Providers having to admit that how they did things before was not the best option
• Worry that providers moving to a business model where they pay people with disabilities a competitive wage is not sustainable, providers are so used to a business model where they pay subminimum wage
• Employers will need to be more flexible (and they have been in the pandemic). If PCA doesn’t show up, how flexible will employer be?

Lack knowledge/positive perspective on hiring people with disabilities

• Lack of knowledge/experience about hiring people with disabilities
• Many employers see people with disabilities as unable. Not everyone is a champion
• Low expectations

Supports needed

• Transportation
• Workforce challenge for disability support staff because need more staff if employment moves from group setting to individual model
• Identifying what services are needed when someone is working (whose responsibility?)

Other related challenges

• Pressure on providers from families that they have to offer a subminimum wage option
• Filling the time that the subminimum wage job provides (residential providers)
• Structural challenges within service delivery system (many interconnected components)

Families and supports

Having enough direct supports

• Transportation
• Support at home to address challenges with, say, transportation (PCA needs to show up)
• Enough support professionals for people with disabilities on the job (Huge problem, need the support to work and otherwise be in the community)
• Staffing shortages – need to provide services to people
• Planning for the services that need to come in to work with the people
• Loss of full day care for the people

Fear

• Fear of losing services that advocates have fought to maintain
• Fear of letting go, once you discover something is possible, make more choices
• Fear of what will happen – what this means for the future of their family member
• Anxiety in person meeting the mold of what they should be rather than what they were
• The belief that people with disabilities can’t do integrated, competitive employment
• Changing narrative of what loved one can do, possibilities

Lack of/need for information

• Lack of understanding for how situations could look different
• Lack of staff education (training around what employment services are and could be)
• Misinformation about the feasibility of integrated employment
• Lack of a centralized location to get reliable information
• Having resources and people who can support and talk through the worries and issues, maybe tapping examples of others who have made the transition

Systemic/legal challenges

• Laws preventing people from making too much money
• Systemic issue of wrapping services together for people
• Interdependent society if we end subminimum wages but not provide/have available all that needs to happen around that, we are in trouble
• Shift other systems: Residential services and restrictions about when they can be home during the day
• Guardianship challenge in Minnesota: The guardian alone speaks for the person without, perhaps, recognizing the wants of the person with disabilities and making choices for themselves – and without input from provider, case managers, others

Other (personal) challenges

• Filling the time that the subminimum wage job provides

Community

Ableism/perception of employees with disabilities

• The ableism that exists
• Negative narratives about people with disabilities
• Accessibility and inclusion, people in community afraid to interact with people with disabilities
• Data from a survey by the Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities shows acceptance shifting in the wrong direction
• Ableism: The public not seeing a role for them to interact with people with disabilities
• People need to be more flexible and understanding, shift views of what employment looks like
• Fear that a person with disabilities will be more qualified for a job that someone else now holds if the person with disabilities is very knowledgeable about a particular subject matter. Colleagues may not accept this expertise

Community support of workers with disabilities

• Lack of responsibility for supporting people with disabilities (we all support each other)
• Need for community to provide support or workers to provide supports

Systems, funding and policies

• Attitudinal shift with people who control disability community
• Need to support and keep up with this too
• Regulatory changes, alone time for a person, 245D license as a provider of intensive support services
• Multiple people sign off on yearly plan for a person with disabilities
• A retreat from the more expensive services provided to people with disabilities (that is decreased support)
• Shrinking availability of support services
• Advocates for maintaining subminimum wages
• The argument about providing choice to workers with disabilities