Economic Justice

Five months ago when I joined the Labor Department’s Veterans’ Employment and Training Service, I vowed to work every day to make sure our veterans have the resources they need to get good jobs. That includes fostering strong relationships with our government and private sector partners to build better networks of services for our veterans.

It also includes listening to veterans and transitioning service members to understand what challenges they face when looking for employment. That helps me understand what we can do to make things a little smoother.

In my travels around the country, one of the comments I hear the most is about the variety of websites for veterans’ employment. It’s often hard for transitioning service members, veterans and their spouses to know where to start, whether they’re looking for a first civilian job after the military, wanting a career change or hoping to start a business. And I’ve heard similar things from employers who want to hire veterans but don’t know where to begin.

Today, I am pleased to share with you the best starting point to build a better network of resources: our virtual, one-stop online employment services website, Veterans.gov. The site brings together job banks, state employment offices, American Job Centers, opportunities in top trending industry sectors and tools for employers.

Navigating the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), the first legislative reform to the public workforce system of the 21st century is no easy task. Success will require unprecedented levels of collaboration across workforce boards, employers, and educators, and technology will serve as the backbone of this transformation.

Monster has the experience and tools to close technology gaps, eliminate disparate systems, collaborate with partners, establish a common intake process, improve communication and mobility, and empower your organization to address WIOA’s:

• Title I - Adult, Dislocated Workers, And Youth
  - Support jobseekers with their job search, career counseling, and job training
• Title II – Adult Education and Literacy
  - Assist those adults in need of improving their basic skills through services focused on reading, writing, math and English proficiency.
• Title III – Employment Services (Wagner-Peyser)
  - Help jobseekers, including those getting unemployment benefits, with services focused on finding work and helping employers with recruiting
• Title IV – Vocational Rehabilitation
  - Focus on individuals with disabilities maximize their employability and integration into the workplace through programs that offer comprehensive services including vocational rehabilitation, occupational training and assistive technologies

Contact us to learn how Monster Government Solutions can help you!

WIOA Webinar 

“It’s the greatest professional disappointment of my career,” Bruce Growick told me recently without a trace of doubt in his voice. The former president of the International Association of Rehabilitation Professionals was referring to the Ticket to Work program, a 1999 outgrowth of Social Security Disability Insurance that was intended to funnel the nation’s growing ranks of injured workers back into the workforce. In the 90s, Growick testified before the committees that would draft Ticket to Work and met with lawmakers to help shape it. Years before he became skeptical of its effectiveness, he was optimistic about what it might do for disabled individuals.

“Having a job is so much better than being paid to stay at home,” he says. In his testimony, Growick said, “The role of government should be to assist and encourage persons with disabilities towards employment.”

One reason for the low rates of work among disability recipients is that the task of enrolling in disability in the first place is rather daunting. Signing up for benefits requires, first, an in-depth review of medical records by state officials and sometimes doctors. Two-thirds of applicants are rejected at this step. From there, applicants can appeal, and an additional 11 percent get through at this point. Everyone else must endure a tense hearing before a judge. When all is said and done, years can pass between the moment the person is injured and the moment they hold a freshly cut check in their hands.

“You apply, you wait and wait and wait,” said Nicole Maestas, a senior economist at RAND who has studied SSDI. “It took you three years to get the benefits, and that whole time you couldn’t work. Now someone comes to you and says, ‘Hey, let’s try and work.’”

An increasing number of Americans with disabilities are finding work, according to new data from the U.S. Department of Labor.

Figures released Friday as part of the agency’s monthly employment report indicate that the unemployment rate for those with disabilities fell to 10.8 percent last month. That’s a drop from 12.5 percent the month prior.

The change reflects a growing population of people with disabilities who are seeking out work and finding it.

The World Institute on Disability is conducting this brief 10 to 15 minute survey about individuals with disabilities and their finances. All responses will be combined and no individual responses will be made available. Thank you for your willingness to participate in this brief survey.

This guide is meant to help individuals, families, and households who use home care services determine their responsibilities under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the federal minimum wage and overtime law that applies to most home care workers.

The guide explains who must follow the FLSA rules, with examples of situations involving hiring a home care worker directly, using a home care agency, and arranging care through a self-directed program. It discusses paid providers who are family members of the consumer and who are live-in workers.

The guide also explains how to follow the FLSA rules, that is, what it means to pay minimum wage and overtime, track hours worked, and keep proper records.

Work Incentive Planning and Assistance (WIPA) projects are funded by the Social Security Administration (SSA) to provide information and benefits planning to enable beneficiaries with disabilities to make informed choices about work. WIPA projects hire and train Community Work Incentives Coordinators (CWICs) who work with individuals receiving Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and/or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) to provide in-depth counseling about benefits and the effect of work on those benefits. Who Is Eligible to Receive Services? WIPA services are available to individuals eligible for Social Security disability benefits AND working, looking for work or thinking about returning to work. 

Note: Social Security Disability benefits include Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), and Social Security Childhood Disability Benefits (SSCDB), also known as Social Security Disabled Adult Child (SSDAC).

Return to work services, including WIPA projects can be found through SSA’s Choose Work website search engine. Go to http://www.choosework.net/resource/jsp/searchByState.jsp and enter a zip code to connect with local resources and services. To search for a local WIPA provider, enter a zip code and choose the dropdown option Benefits Counseling (WIPA).

Welcome to TalentWorks, the online resource that helps employers and human resources (HR) professionals make their eRecruiting technologies accessible to all job seekers—including those with disabilities.

Are your company's virtual doors open to everyone? They may not be. According to a 2015 survey of people with disabilities conducted by PEAT, 46 percent of respondents rated their last experience applying for a job online as "difficult to impossible." And that matters, because if your technology is limiting your pool of applicants, you could be missing out on top talent.

With most of today's employers using some form of web-based recruiting to evaluate and hire job applicants, it's more important than ever to understand why accessibility matters to eRecruiting, and how to ensure your talent acquisition tools are accessible. TalentWorks is designed to help you do just that.

Developed by PEAT, the following web pages synthesize ideas and solutions gathered from employers, advocacy organizations, job applicants, and technology providers. We've distilled those resources into what will be a continuously evolving online guide, all with the aim of helping employers improve the accessibility of the technology they use throughout the entire employment lifecycle.

March 29, 2016 -2:00pm to 3:30pm

Wellness programs remain a popular feature of the employer landscape, but the legal environment surrounding them has long been uncertain. In April 2015, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission took a significant step toward resolving this uncertainty by formally proposing a ruleclarifying the applicability Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) to wellness programs.

In doing so, it staked out middle ground between an approach that would have sharply limited the use of incentives in wellness programs, and a more permissive approach consistent with regulations already in place under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The proposed rule has the potential to shape, or reshape, future wellness programs. The extent to which it will do so, however, remains uncertain.

As I have described in a previous post, the drafters of the ADA acknowledged both the benefits and the risks of HRA-based wellness programs by limiting disability-related inquiries and medical examinations, but carving out an exception for voluntary wellness programs. The question of how to define “voluntary” lingered for many years. Is a program voluntary if an employee is offered an incentive for completing an HRA? What if the incentive is very large, or takes the form of a penalty?

In its April 2015 proposed rule, the EEOC decided to permit employer health plans to tie incentives to HRAs involving disability-related questions as well as to biometric exams. It limited the magnitude of such incentives, however, to 30 percent of the total cost of employee-only coverage. While this limit closely resembles the 30 percent ceiling applicable to health-contingent incentives under the ACA (42 USC § 300gg-4(j)(3)(A)), in some ways it is more restrictive.

Because HRA incentives are pulled under the ADA’s ceiling, there will be less room remaining to accommodate health-contingent incentives, such as premium discounts tied to cholesterol levels. Furthermore, the ACA ceiling is set at 30 percent of the cost of family coverage when incentives are offered to family members; the proposed rule makes no mention of such an adjustment. As a result, the proposed rule effectively represents a compromise between those who oppose incentives and those who would like to take full advantage of incentives permitted under the ACA.