Earning a Real Wage: A Statewide Investigation of Young Adults With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

Abstract

• Employment for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) is gaining increased attention through legislation like the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), policies such as Employment First initiatives, advocacy efforts by organizations like the Association of People Supporting Employment First, and various practices aimed at improving employment outcomes.

• The primary focus is on enhancing competitive employment outcomes, which means integrated settings where individuals with IDD work alongside those without disabilities, earning at least minimum wage. Efforts are also directed at reducing the reliance on facility-based and subminimum wage jobs, particularly for transition-age youth.

• A statewide survey was conducted to compare the earnings of young adults with IDD to those of other age groups, revealing that young adults had significantly better odds of earning higher wages.

• The study delves into the implications for public policy and service systems, emphasizing the need for comprehensive supports to ensure positive work lives for young adults with IDD. This includes job exploration counseling, work-based learning, and self-advocacy training, as mandated by WIOA.

Keywords

• employment

• intellectual and developmental disabilities

• subminimum wage

• minimum wage

Introduction

• Employment for individuals with IDD is a critical concern, especially during the transition to adulthood. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey indicates that only $25.7\%$ of those with cognitive disabilities (including IDD) are employed in the community, and a mere $8.2\%$ of those with cognitive disabilities who also use Supplemental Security Income are employed in the community (Winsor et al., 2018).

• Individuals with IDD face several challenges:

  • Higher rates of unemployment

  • Lower wages compared to peers, both with and without disabilities

  • Increased likelihood of living in poverty than other disability categories (Verdonschot et al., 2009; Winsor et al., 2018)

• Caregivers also express concerns about employment prospects for young adults with IDD (Gilson et al., 2018).

• Historically, individuals with IDD have been employed in facility-based settings, such as sheltered workshops, where workers are typically paid subminimum wages based on productivity metrics (Butterworth et al., 2015).

• Advances in the field highlight viable options beyond sheltered settings, such as community-based settings with the necessary supports. These settings offer competitive integrated employment where individuals work alongside employees without disabilities, earning at least minimum wage (Bradley et al., 2015; Butterworth et al., 2015).

Subminimum Wage

• Paying people with disabilities below the federal minimum wage is permitted in the U.S. under Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act. This provision allows establishments to obtain 14(c) waivers (certificates) to pay individuals based on diminished productivity due to disability. However, limited oversight has led to exploitation of workers with disabilities (Guilfoyle, 2015).

• Congress intended the waiver to provide more employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities by counteracting employer standards for productivity in hiring (‘‘Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938,’’ 1938). Arguments in favor of the 14(c) waiver program claim it ensures more employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities (Guilfoyle, 2015; Sakovits, 2015). This reasoning is flawed because it views employment as merely an economic arrangement, ignoring social and psychological benefits (Sakovits, 2015).

• Employment provides financial benefits, social participation, and improvements to physical and mental health (Fesko, Hall, Quinlan, & Jockell, 2012). Workers with IDD are disproportionately affected by subminimum wage. A study based on NLTS-2 data showed that $23\%$ of individuals with IDD between 19 and 23 years old earned less than $5.15 dollars$ hourly, compared to $4\%$ of individuals with other disabilities (Grigal, Hart, & Migliore, 2011).

• The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA; PL 113-128) in 2014 included Section 511, which placed limitations on the use of subminimum wage by entities using 14(c) waivers. Section 511 ensures individuals with disabilities receive information and services to achieve competitive employment. The WIOA required a 25-member advisory committee that recommended phasing out 14(c) waivers, emphasizing the building of state and local capacity to advance competitive employment for people with significant disabilities (The Advisory Committee for Increasing Competitive Integrated Employment for Individuals With Disabilities, 2016).

• WIOA also requires state vocational rehabilitation (VR) agencies to set aside at least $15\%$ of their federal funds to provide pre-employment transition services to students with disabilities who were eligible, or potentially eligible, for VR services. These services include job exploration counseling, work-based learning, work-readiness training, counseling on opportunities for comprehensive transition or postsecondary programs, and instruction on self-advocacy, intended to promote greater entry into competitive employment that pays higher than subminimum wage (Workforce Innovation Technical Assistance Center, n.d.).

• WIOA provides the opportunity for more utilization of community-based settings by individuals with IDD; however, limited research has identified differences between age groups and their employment settings. Determining whether individuals with IDD in the transition to adulthood are finding and retaining competitive jobs in the community would provide further justification for these legislative advances as well as provide the groundwork for future legislation.

Purpose

• The article aims to understand the effect of age on subminimum and minimum wage utilization, focusing on transition-age youth and employment.

• Hypotheses:

  • Transition-age workers with IDD are more likely to earn minimum wage or higher.

  • Transition-age workers with IDD are less likely to earn subminimum wage than older workers with IDD.

• Research Questions:

  1. What are the odds of transition-age workers with IDD to earn minimum wage or higher?

  2. How do the odds of transition-age workers with IDD to earn minimum wage or higher compare to older age groups?

Methods

Sample

• Data from the 2019 Indiana Day and Employment Services Outcome System (DESOS) were used.

• Inclusion criteria:

  • Received day and/or employment services

  • Had a developmental disability (autism, cerebral palsy, and/or ID)

  • Working-age (18–65 years old)

  • Had work earnings

• Initial pool: 10,406 individuals with IDD that received day and/or employment services.

• Restricting to working-age adults with IDD: 8,124 individuals.

• Final sample: 4,146 individuals with earnings ($40\%$ of the total IDD sample and $51\%$ of the working-age sample).

Data Source and Data Collection

• The DESOS is an individual-level, web-based, data collection application developed by the Indiana University’s Institute on Disability and Community, in collaboration with community rehabilitation providers, and the state of Indiana’s VR and DD agencies (Grossi, 2019).

• Goal: To monitor system performance and provide insight to state policymakers, local service providers, and legislators regarding services and employment outcomes of individuals with IDD.

• The DESOS dataset was chosen because it afforded the opportunity to capture individual characteristics as well as employment earnings of day and employment service users, and also offered the capacity to monitor key indicators such as the use of subminimum wage.

• Annual compilation of data pertains to people with disabilities who receive day and employment supports from community rehabilitation providers. In 2019, 66 providers, or $74\%$, of the state’s providers submitted data. The data entered is per individual served.

• A webinar was conducted to help providers and individuals learn what data to enter and how to enter it. Definitions and instructions were also available on the DESOS site and could be highlighted with each question during the process of data entry. Technical assistance was provided to community rehabilitation providers on an ‘‘as needed’’ basis.

Instrumentation

• The DESOS survey collects information across a number of domains.

• Demographic and background information:

  • city/county

  • age

  • guardianship status

  • disability

  • mobility

  • behavioral issues

  • level of support for behaviors

  • primary mode of communication

  • level of personal assistance

• Employment-related items:

  • work situation

  • hours worked

  • type of work performed

  • earnings from employment and other sources

• Additional information:

  • details about daily living

  • transportation during the day

  • the settings where people spend the majority of their time throughout their day.

Analysis

• Univariate statistics were used to assess sample characteristics.

• Focal variables of interest for young adults with ID were compared to other age groups.

• Logistic regression was conducted to test the primary research question.

• Nine variables were included in the analyses.

• The dichotomous outcome variable of interest was earnings of minimum wage or higher (coded ‘‘1’’) or earnings of subminimum wage (coded ‘‘0’’).

• The eight factors were dummy coded.

• Related to IDD, three variables were optimized.

• Level of ID included none (reference group), mild, moderate, profound, and severe.

• An autism and/or cerebral palsy diagnosis was coded ‘‘1’’ or ‘‘0’’ if there was no diagnosis, respectively.

• Gender was coded as ‘‘1’’ for male or ‘‘0’’ for female.

• Race included three groups: White (reference group), Black or African American, or Other.

• The presence of mobility limitations was coded as ‘‘1,’’ and no limitations was coded as ‘‘0.’’

• The level of behavioral challenges was none (reference group), mild, moderate, and severe.

• Finally, age included three groups: 18–24 years (reference group), 25–40 years, and 41–65 years.

Results

• Younger adults were more likely to be male and non-White, compared to older age groups. A greater proportion of younger adults lacked an ID diagnosis ($49.5\%$, compared to $17.9\%$ and $6.1\%$ in the older groups) but had a higher rate of autism diagnoses ($64.2\%$, compared to $38.0\%$ and $23.1\%$, respectively).

• Reported diagnoses of cerebral palsy, mobility impairments, and behavioral challenges were less prevalent in the young adult group compared to the two older groups.

• Nearly three quarters of young adults met the minimum wage earnings threshold, compared to about $50\%$ of 25- to 40-year-olds and about $30\%$ of 41- to 65-year-olds. All differences were significant at p < .001

• Logistic regression showed young adulthood had a significant effect. 18- to 24-year-olds had significantly better odds of earning minimum wage or higher, compared to both older age groups, with 2.8 times higher odds than 25- to 40-year-olds (OR = 0.36, p < .001) and 4.9 times higher odds than 41- to 65-year-olds (OR = 0.21, p < .001).

• The presence of an ID diagnosis, as well as the severity level of ID, were related to significantly lower odds of earning minimum wage or higher. The resulting range was 4 to 14 times greater odds for those with no ID compared to those with mild levels of ID and severe levels of ID, respectively (both significant at p < .001).

• People with cerebral palsy had $37\%$ lower odds (p < .01), and those with mobility impairments had $74\%$ lower odds (p < .001) of earning minimum wage or higher, compared to those without these disabilities, respectively.

• People with greater behavioral challenges experienced significantly lower odds, compared to those without behavioral challenges, ranging from $45\%$ lower for those with mild challenges to $87\%$ lower for those with severe challenges (p < .001). An autism diagnosis did not have a significant effect on the outcome.

Discussion

• Young adults with IDD face unique challenges in obtaining competitive employment and earning at least minimum wage (Bouck & Joshi, 2016; Grigal et al., 2011; Wehman et al., 2014). Greater attention has been given to the outcomes and wages of individuals with IDD, specifically transition-age youth, resulting in legislative attention (e.g., WIOA), advisory recommendations to the Department of Labor, and Employment First initiatives.

• 46 states have advanced policy statements, agency directives, executive orders, and/or targeted legislation that prioritizes competitive employment, at minimum wage or higher, for individuals with IDD (Association of People Supporting Employment First, 2017; Winsor et al., 2017).

• Young adults (18–24 years old) were more likely to earn minimum wage or higher, and as people’s age increased, the odds of them earning minimum wage or higher decreased. The older people were, the more likely they were to be earning subminimum wage.

• Section 511 of WIOA specifies the limitation of the use of subminimum wage for people with disabilities both under the age of 24 years old and over, and requires workers 24 years of age or younger to receive services and supports designed to improve their access to competitive employment.

• Young adults are outperforming older adults with respect to earning minimum wage or higher when employed. This may be linked to greater expectations related to employment and community living for younger people, which has been found to relate to inclusive life outcomes-related to education, housing, and employment (Southward & Kyzar, 2017; Yarbrough, Getzel, & Kester, 2014).

• Individuals employed earning subminimum wage in facility-based settings can be successful in individual jobs paying minimum wage or higher when one’s skills match the position (Butterworth, Hall, Hoff, & Migliore, 2007). Additional research on the role and impact of skills matching and expectations on earnings in early adulthood and throughout one’s engagement in the labor force is needed to understand this complex phenomenon.

• Understanding the process through which individuals once in a competitive employment setting could enter into a setting that uses a 14(c) waiver and remains in the setting is needed. Future research is needed in understanding the service systems and how other supports can impact the employment of young adults with IDD, specifically, how to continue the trajectory to earning a competitive wage, including raising expectations, and identifying barriers and influences.

• The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 dollars$ since July 24, 2009 (U.S. Department of Labor, 2020). Currently, a handful of local governments and the states of Alaska, Maryland, and New Hampshire have banned the use of subminimum wage for employees with disabilities. Additionally, a growing list of states have legislative proposals being considered. This study provides a new way to understand earnings data by highlighting important differences among different age and demographic groups. More policy research on the effectiveness of such interventions to increase earnings and change practices would be useful as a growing list of states and localities consider policy changes.

Limitations

• Service providers responding to the survey did so voluntarily, which may have resulted in an unknown level bias. The sample of people with IDD were from Indiana and predominately White males. Experiences of this sample may not reflect the experiences of people in other states or other cultural and gender groups, caution should be taken when applying these results broadly.

• This study also relied on data captured through an online data collection system by service providers; thus, an unknown amount of error may have occurred due to data entry. This study provides a snapshot in time using correlational analyses. Therefore, the inferences that can be made are limited and results should be interpreted with caution.

Conclusion

• People with IDD continue to face major obstacles to obtaining full and free access to the labor market. As federal legislation, national and state initiatives aim to advance and increase access to competitive employment for people with IDD, greater attention has been placed on the work trajectories of young adults. These shifts are also drawing attention to wage inequities experienced by people with IDD that are a result of current policy and practices.

• As the nation grapples with ways to improve the employment and self-sufficiency of this population, it is imperative to change policies that reinforce outdated notions of the potential of people with IDD to contribute the workforce. Public policies need