On May 23, 2024, the Illinois House of Representatives passed House Bill 793 HA1, known as the Dignity in Pay Act, which aims to ensure that individuals with disabilities receive fair compensation. The bill, which had bipartisan support, is expected to reach the Illinois Senate in November, where it will require a three-fifths vote to pass.
The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 allows organizations with special exemptions to pay subminimum wage to individuals with disabilities. These exemptions come in the form of 14(c) certificates, which permit entities to pay less than minimum wage to individuals whose disabilities impair their productivity. The Dignity in Pay Act would bring an end to these exemptions, eliminating 14(c) certificates and requiring employers to pay individuals with disabilities at least minimum wage by December 31, 2029. Should the Dignity in Pay Act pass the Senate, Illinois would become the 19th state to eliminate subminimum wage for individuals with disabilities.
At present, many individuals with disabilities participate in sheltered work, meaning that work is done in a setting that segregates them from individuals without disabilities and pays them a rate lower than the stated minimum wage. Over the last few decades, there has been a move to transition individuals from sheltered, subminimum wage work to competitive integrated employment.
In competitive integrated employment, individuals with disabilities are compensated at or above minimum wage, at a rate comparable to individuals without disabilities who are performing similar duties. Competitive integrated employment also ensures that individuals with disabilities receive similar benefits to other employees, work in an environment that allows them to interact with individuals without disabilities and are presented with equitable opportunities for advancement. Success is fostered through the assistance of job coaches and employment specialists who offer behavioral, emotional, cognitive, and communication support to individuals with disabilities as they learn to conduct their jobs appropriately. Over time, as the employee’s capacity grows, these additional supports are slowly phased out, and the worker performs the job with supports already existing within the environment.
The adaptation from subminimum wage to competitive integrated employment is not without challenges. Many agencies are reliant upon 14(c) work to help fund their operations, and it will be necessary for some agencies to develop new business models to support the transition to competitive integrated employment. The Subminimum Wage to Competitive Integrated Employment Innovative Model Demonstration Project, otherwise known as SWTCIE Illinois, is one of the projects tasked with bringing the transition from subminimum wage to competitive integrated employment to fruition.
SWTCIE Illinois is part of a 13-state project funded by the federal government and administered by the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS), Division of Rehabilitation Services (DRS), in which strategies and best practices are implemented to transition individuals who have been working in a sheltered work environment to competitive integrated employment. SWTCIE Illinois has established partnerships with six agencies — two in Chicagoland, two in northwest Illinois, and two in southern Illinois — that hold 14(c) certificates and is assisting those agencies in addressing the challenges that come with making the transition to competitive integrated employment.
To help administer the project, including the important task of project evaluation, DRS collaborated with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The SWTCIE Illinois project is one of several state and federal grant-funded projects within the Illinois Institute for Rehabilitation and Employment Research (IIRER), housed within the College of Applied Health Sciences at Illinois.
“What we’re working on at SWTCIE is helping agencies build the capacity to deliver supportive employment and providing staff with training that they need to be able to go out and offer supportive employment,” said Dr. David Strauser, IIRER director and professor for the Department of Health and Kinesiology at the U. of I. “Our project is giving a roadmap to help support these agencies, transform their business models, get contracts with the state, and hire and train staff in supportive employment versus subminimum wage or 14(c) employment.”
Strauser noted that a multidimensional paradigm shift will be necessary for the efforts of SWTCIE Illinois to be successful. “It’s a full-blown educational, attitudinal change. There needs to be systemic change to support what’s happening here. It’s going to change business for both state and community agencies,” he said. “There’s a lot of red tape, and it’s a hard process, or at least that’s the perception. As a result, [community] agencies don’t always have access to the resources that will allow them to provide supportive employment. And state agencies also need to change and transform themselves to better support the [community] agencies serving individuals so that they’re better able to reach the groups they’re trying to serve and don’t become barriers themselves.”
Family education is also an important component of the project. “We’re trying to give families resources to support them,” Strauser said. “Some parents worry about integrating their older children into the community for fear that it is not safe. Other parents are afraid their children will lose Social Security benefits if they work too much. There needs to be education on how [this transition] looks and how it works, so that we can try to address their fears.”
Strauser emphasized that while the project is focused on transitioning from subminimum wage to competitive integrated employment, the key is ensuring that the needs of individuals with disabilities are met appropriately and in a way that recognizes their dignity. “For those who don’t or can’t work, there will be other programming available to them, such as day rehabilitation programs. What we’re trying to do is not to eliminate those programs, but to let people into the community and to maximize and provide the best opportunities for the ones who want to work,” he said. “We want people to have access to good, competitive jobs that are paid at a respectable, dignified wage.”