Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Hillary Clinton Proposes to Harm Disabled Workers
Hillary Clinton Proposes to Harm Disabled Workers
Apr 2, 2025 8:37 AM

“Most of economics can be summarized in four words: ‘People respond to incentives,’”says economist Steven E. Landsburg. “The rest mentary.”The same can (mostly) be said aboutelectoral politics: Politicians respond to incentives.

Politicians are often derided for following the crowd rather than leading on public policy. But in doing so they are often acting rationally. To gain votes you have to give people what they want, even if want they want is ultimately harmful.

When we can see or predict the destructive e of such policies there is a tendency to assume the politicians motives were dishonorable. But more often than not, politicians who endorse bad policies have noble motives —even if it is nothing more thanthe desire to give voters what they asked for.

I believe that is true in the case of Hillary Clinton, who became the first major presidential candidate to ever mend paying all disabled workers the minimum wage. I assume her motives are perfectly pure, even though the result would lead to increased unemployment for disabled workers.

Currently, if you want to hire someone, the minimum you can pay a worker is either zero or the federally mandated minimum wage. You can get away with paying nothing at all if you call the job an “internship” ply with a half-dozen government requirements. Otherwise, you must pay the worker $7.25 an hour.

But there is an exception to that rule. In 1938 Congress instituted what’s known as the 14c exemption to the Fair Labor Standards Act, which allows employers to obtain a special wage certificate from the Department of Labor that waives their obligation to pay disabled individuals the federally mandated minimum wage.

With this exemptionan employer can pay a mensurate wage,” a sub-minimum wage paid to a worker with a disability that is based on his or her individual productivity (no matter how limited) in proportion to the productivity of experienced workers who do not have disabilities performing essentially the same type, quality, and quantity of work in the vicinity where the worker with a disability is employed.

How is mensurate wage determined? As the U.S. Department of Labor explains:

In very simple terms, if the worker with a disability is 60% as productive when performing a particular job as is the experienced worker who does not have a disability performing the exact same job, mensurate wage for that worker with a disability would be at least 60% of the prevailing wage (the wage rate paid to the experienced worker who does not have a disability).

Here’s an example of how it works: In awidget factor the average worker can produce 100 widgets an hour, for which they earn$8 an hour. A disabled worker, however, may only be able to produce 50 widgets an hour. Because their productivity is only 50 percent of the average, they get half the average pay: $4 an hour.

Based on this standard, the employer has nothing to gain by hiring disabled workers and would do so simply out of charity. Instead of paying one fully productive worker, they could hire two disabled workers at 50 percent functionality. But the employer would gain no real benefit and so has no incentive to exploit disabled workers. Indeed, the employers who most often qualify for the exemption are non-profits like Goodwill Industries whose goal is to provide job skills and opportunities for the disadvantaged.

But some progressive disability rights activists decry this system as unfair. They point out that there may be little to no economic benefit for someone who may only earn a few dollars for their labor. On this point they are mostly right. But no one is expecting disabled people to be able to support themselves financially on $1 an hour. And they miss the reason this exemption is necessary and beneficial:work is about more than money — it’s also about the dignity of contributing to the world, to using our vocations to serve ourfellow man.

By eliminating the 14c exemption we would be telling disabled workers that since their productivityis not able to meet the threshold for the minimum wage, they musteitherwork for pensation (like unpaid interns) or else not beallowed to work at all.

It’s bad enough the government already sends this message to low-skilled workers. Why would we want to tell disabled workers they too aren’t worthy of having a job?

Politicians like Clinton have an obvious incentive to pander to voters who decry “inequitable pay.” But noble motives are no excuse for harming those who are most in need of the dignity of work.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Careful what you wish for….
Via Drudge, Australia is joining none other than China in censoring the internet. Here’s a surprising endorsement/justification the writer uses to bottom line the article: The Australian Christian Lobby, however, has ed the proposals. Managing director Jim Wallace said the measures were needed. "The need to prevent access to illegal hard-core material and child pornography must be placed above the industry’s desire for unfettered access," Mr Wallace said. I’m not endorsing porn. But earth to Mr. Wallace: Scan up a...
Birth of Freedom Shorts Series: How did Plato and Aristotle justify slavery?
In this week’s Birth of Freedom short video Sam Gregg, author of On Ordered Liberty, discusses the views that two influential ancient philosophers held regarding human equality and the practice of slavery. If you haven’t seen the other 7 video shorts, you can check out the rest of the series, learn about premieres in your area, and discover more background information at . ...
Doctoral Work on Religion and Philanthropy
I received this notice via H-Net last week: THE LAKE INSTITUTE ON FAITH & GIVING THE CENTER ON PHILANTHROPY INDIANA UNIVERSITY DOCTORAL DISSERTATION FELLOWSHIP The Lake Institute on Faith and Giving at the Center on Philanthropy, Indiana University will offer a one year doctoral dissertation fellowship of $22,000 for the academic year 2009-2010. This doctoral dissertation fellowship will be given to a scholar whose primary research focus is in the area of religion and philanthropy or faith and giving. The...
Birth of Freedom Shorts Series: Is it appropriate to consider the religious views of political candidates?
Acton Media’s latest Birth of Freedom short video is a timely message in the face of tomorrow’s election. In this video, William B. Allen, Professor of Political Science at Michigan State University, discusses how faith, “the pelling part of one’s existence”, ought to fit in when evaluating a political candidate. Check out more Birth of Freedom shorts, learn about premieres in your area, and discover more background information at . ...
Why Not Learn Some Economics First?
According to a report from the Zenit News Service, Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace, recently insisted that the “logic” of the market be changed. He said that the logic “was till (sic) now that of maximum gain, and therefore the most investments possible directed toward obtaining maximum benefit. And this, according to the social doctrine of the Church, is immoral.” This is because, according to the Cardinal, the market “should be able to...
Federalism and the EPA
There’s a lingering issue that continues to bother me about the so-called “global warming” Supreme Court case from 2007, Massachusetts v. EPA (05-1120), and that is a nagging concern about federalism and environmental standards. As it stands currently, individual states are often prevented from enacting tougher legislation or regulation regarding some forms of pollution than the federal EPA standards. In order for a state EPA to partner with the federal EPA, be “authorized,” and thus receive funds, “a state must...
Busted
The lyrics to “Busted,” written by Harlan Howard, and made famous as performed by Johnny Cash: My bills are all due and the babies need shoes, But I’m Busted Cotton’s gone down to a quarter a pound And I’m Busted I got a cow that’s gone dry And a hen that won’t lay A big stack of bills Getting bigger each day The county’s gonna haul my belongings away, But I’m Busted So I called on my brother to ask...
“A lot of people are hungry for this…”
A Boston-area Church of Christ is using environmental stewardship to boost membership. The United Church of Christ, to which the Newbury congregation belongs, has called upon its members to e more deeply engaged in stewardship initiatives. Gary Gardner, a senior researcher at the Worldwatch Institute, an environmental research organization in Washington, wrote in 2002 that the union of environmentalists and religious institutions is "a bination that until recently remained virtually unexplored. . . . Each looks at the world from...
Baby Stepping Toward the Nanny State
Is Senator Obama a closet socialist waiting for inauguration day, at which time he and a Democratic Congress will immediately pursue a massive increase in the size and power of government in our lives, panied by massive tax increases and massive redistribution of wealth? Or is he really a moderate pragmatist, a canny politician who when he was getting started in politics used his radical contacts from his ultra-leftwing Hyde munity, but now is in a position to use more...
Election Preaching
The election day sermon was an important institution in colonial New England. It was one delivered by Samuel Danforth in 1670 that furnished the venerable Puritan concept of America as an “errand into the wilderness.” (For more, see Nathan Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity.) One need not share the Massachusetts colony’s view of church-state relations (one of the chief tasks of government was the suppression of heresy) to recognize that the election day sermon served a useful purpose. The...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved