The Goodwill Controversy

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Image Owned by Goodwill
You may or may not have heard about the recent uproar that Goodwill has been facing.  If you haven't, then this is the post to read.

 Goodwill is a non-profit organization through which people can donate clothing, accessories, housewares, etc. Once you donate such items, they will either be resold to customers or recycled.  The profits then go to benefit certain groups of people, including people with disabilities.  The money is supposed to fund job training and other programs to benefit this particular group (goodwill.org).

In order to best explain the controversy, I must first explain a bit about subminimum wage in the United States.

Recently, Goodwill came under fire for paying their employees with disabilities something called subminimum wage.  Subminimum wage is any wage provided by employers that is less than the federal minimum wage ($7.25).  According to the Department of Labor's website, this is perfectly legal, stating that "Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act authorizes employers, after receiving a certificate from the Wage and Hour Division, to pay special minimum wages - wages less than the Federal minimum wage - to workers who have disabilities for the work being performed."

According to the Department of Labor, over one thousand (1,579) employers were granted permission to pay individuals with disabilities wages much lower than the federal minimum wage.  In some cases, these wages can be as low as $1/hour or even lower.  According to ABC Law Centers, about 3% (200,000) people with disabilities are paid subminimum wage.

Now that I have provided context, let's delve into the actual controversy.

This all started when a Goodwill in Southern Illinois announced its decision to stop paying its employees with disabilities.  According to the Chicago Tribune, the organization made this decision after "expected rising payroll costs due to the pending state minimum wage increase" ($8.25 to $15 by 2025).  In defense of this decision, the CEO stated: "It really was not a job, we gave them through grace out of our budget to pay them so they had a paycheck to go home with."  After major backlash via social media, Goodwill took back this decision.  However, this problem exposed the fact that Goodwill was paying its disabled employees well below minimum wage, despite receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from the government for the purpose of supporting its disabled employees.

This problem has since caused major debate about whether or not people with disabilities should be paid the same as their able-bodied counterparts, and if not, how much they should be paid.  Some states have passed legislation to delete subminimum wage, including New Hampshire and Alaska.  In addition, a week after this all happened, the United States House of Representatives passed the Raise the Wage Act.  While this act predominantly functions to raise the federal minimum wage to $15, it also includes a provision that eradicates the subminimum wage mandate for people with disabilities.  It has yet to be introduced on the floor of the Senate.

Just like several of my previous posts, I have linked all of my sources below, so that you may check them out for yourself if you so choose.

Sources:
Goodwill
Department of Labor Website
ABC Law Centers
Chicago Tribune
Raise the Wage Act

Thanks for reading!

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