There has been an ongoing fight to raise wages for people with disabilities. According to The Fair Labor Standards Act, employers are allowed to pay subminimum wages to workers who have disabilities if the disability impairs the workers earning or productive capacity of the work being done.
On the other hand, many debate on what is more important, the wage or the life experience.
Gaining work experience is important for any individual. At Lawrence High, work experience coordinator Matt Klein works with students with disabilities to build soft skills.
“Those are the skills that are going to help them be successful at any job,” Klein said. “We do that on campus first. You’ll see students helping out with coffee, with newspaper delivery, with recycling, with laundry, with cleaning tables in the hallways, helping out in the library, helping clean the van, all different types of jobs.”
Klein’s program also helps the students look for a job off campus that aligns with their interests. Project Search is an employment opportunity for students after graduation. This allows them to get employed with more competitive pay.
“There’s also places like Van Gogh, students with IEPs automatically qualify for the services that Van Gogh provides; they still have to apply for a job there,” Klein said. “But they’re working, and in recent years, have tried to start paying students more than minimum wage. As we know, minimum wage is not a very sustainable amount of money to live on.”
Klein recognizes the difficulty of making a sustainable wage in Kansas. He encourages high wages but also wants his students to pursue their dreams.
“We can be exploited by our interest in earning money and that there are other things that are really important to have in the balance that we have…” Klein said. “We need to be a little bit more balanced and holistic about what are the important things that we need in our lives.”
It’s a common standard for payment to be based on the amount of work an employee can do. Klein believes everyone should be getting paid more than minimum wage.
“Everybody should be getting paid. I think minimum wage is a joke. It should be significantly more than that,” Klein said. “Because we know that there’s a difference between minimum wage and the self-sufficiency standard. Ideally, people would be getting paid a certain amount of money where they wouldn’t require supplemental services and income.”
Cottonwood Incorporated specializes in employing adults with disabilities. The various jobs focus on general skills that can be used in many different work settings. The company produces medical kits, Superbowl-themed cups, and cargo straps. They also have various work contract options that best fit the employee’s preferred tasks.
Kara Walters, the Administrator of Services at Cottonwood, believes in the importance of these accommodations.
“You may have to be able to do all five steps of a particular job. Here, that is not the case,” Walters said. “We’ll co
ntinue to look for those opportunities to give you the chance to try something out. To experience it, but if you can’t do it, for whatever reason, you still can work here very successfully.”
Cottonwood helps connect employees with other jobs outside of their facility. Jamie Meyer, a Cottonwood employee for 28 years, doesn’t feel the need to work anywhere else, as she enjoys all the different contracts.
“I like to do just about anything… and I do like cargo [straps],” Meyer said.
While work is important at Cottonwood, the connections they make are just as valuable. Relationships within a workspace can correlate to a better environment.
“I like all the people,” Meyer said. “I could get used to working with these guys all of the time.”
Whether it be at Cottonwood, or out elsewhere in Lawrence, in the end, the goal is for people with disabilities to obtain competitive, substantial pay in a job that they enjoy and fulfills their interests.
“Cottonwood really hopes for those choices to be available, because every person’s choice is going to be different,” Walters said. “Employers out in Lawrence would absolutely love to have all of you.”
