Economic Justice

The Daily Beast received an audio file and transcript from a source participating in one of the federal investigations. The recording is of a December 2013 conversation between Jean Robinson, then-General Counsel of SourceAmerica, and Ruben Lopez, CEO of Bona Fide Conglomerates Inc. (Bona Fide is a nonprofit company that trains and employs workers with severe disabilities. It has been embroiled in on-and-off legal battles with SourceAmerica since 2010.) Lopez was participating in one of the federal investigations and wearing a wire.

During the recording, Robinson is heard describing her firsthand observations of ongoing conflicts of interest and mismanagement among the higher-ups at SourceAmerica. She paints a picture of back-scratching and underhanded deals in which SourceAmerica recommended federal contracts not for the most deserving organizations, but for their friends.

Robinson expresses her belief that she was sidelined as she attempted to rope the organization into good governance. She repeatedly denounces what she describes as “scheming” by a “mafia” or “allocation machine”; that is, a group of insiders at SourceAmerica who unfairly award lucrative contracts to themselves and to allies.

The ruling is belated but welcome news to 28 men who were victimized in one of recent history’s more notorious cases of workplace exploitation. It means roughly $25,000 for each man.

Robert A. Canino, a lawyer for the federalEqual Employment Opportunity Commission, who has handled the men’s case from the outset, expressed elation tempered by what he described as the injustice endured by these men for years.

“At the end of the day, we all understand that money will not heal the wounds or reclaim the lost years of quality of life and equal opportunity,” Mr. Canino said.

The Senate unanimously approved the Special Needs Trust Fairness Act (S. 349) to correct an error in the law that presumes that all persons with disabilities lack the mental capacity to handle their own affairs. The legislation was introduced by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Bill Nelson (D-FL), with Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) joining as a co-sponsor.

The paper, “One Size Does Not Fit All: A New Look at the Labor Force Participation of People with Disabilities,” comes as millions of U.S. workers return from the Labor Day holiday. It offers a fresh look at the roughly 19 percent of Americans with disabilities, a population that has frequently withdrawn from the workforce. Over recent decades, people with disabilities have comprised over one-third of those who haven’t sought work or stopped trying to find it. Since the Great Recession, employment numbers for this demographic have not bounced back at the same rate as for people without disabilities, the study found.

Yin breaks down percentages of people with disabilities either employed or actively looking for work in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The data is further disaggregated into four main disability types: cognitive, ambulatory, vision or hearing, and self-care—defined as physical or mental health disabilities that have lasted more than 6 months, making it difficult for people to handle basic needs. Using 2013 data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey, the brief found:

• Alaska, Minnesota and Wyoming have high labor force participation across all disability types.
• West Virginia, Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee have low labor force participation rates across all disability types.
• Many states have wide variances among groups. The District of Columbia—despite a high participation rate for people with cognitive difficulties—ranked at the bottom for people with vision or hearing and self-care difficulties. Similarly, Montana has a relatively low overall all participation rate, but ranked in the top ten for people with ambulatory difficulties.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced Tuesday that parties to a 2012 lawsuit against the state of Oregon have reached a proposed settlement that paves the way for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities to migrate from the workshops to mainstream jobs.

The Justice Department estimates that the lives of roughly 7,000 people 14 years and older will be enriched by the settlement, which will give them chances to become gainfully employed in the open marketplace. 

"People with disabilities deserve opportunities to work alongside their friends, peers and neighbors without disabilities and to earn fair wages,"Vanita Gupta, the head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, said in a news release.

The states with the consistently lowest workforce participation rates are West Virginia, Mississippi, Kentucky, Alabama and Arizona. When taking into consideration the gap between the employment rate of people with disabilities and those without disabilities, Maine and Vermont are added to the list, with Maine coming in dead last in the country.

Unfortunately, many states have continued to fund failed programs and old ways of thinking but there is good news. According to U.S. Census Bureau statistics from 2013, the following 10 states are leading the nation in creating more job opportunities for the one-in-five Americans who have a disability:

North Dakota

Wyoming

South Dakota

Alaska

Minnesota

Nebraska

Iowa

Utah

Colorado

New Hampshire 

Federal agents from Washington raided Memphis Goodwill this week as part of a growing national fraud investigation into AbilityOne, the top taxpayer-funded program that provides work to disabled workers, according to inside sources.

More than two dozen agents from numerous federal agencies drove onto the Memphis Goodwill headquarters on Wednesday, sealing the back of the property containing the corporate headquarters, which administers millions of dollars in Federal contracts throughout the Memphis metropolitan area.

The fraud investigation into the government program was first detailed in an exclusive CNN story several weeks ago. AbilityOne and its management operation, SourceAmerica, are now under investigation by at least four separate Offices of Inspectors General, and also by the U.S. Department of Justice, according to inside sources.

AbilityOne and SourceAmerica, and many of the contracts they administer, are being investigated over allegations of financial fraud, operating illegal contracts, not employing the legally required number of disabled workers, bid-rigging, contract "steering," and possible racketeering, according to sources. The program is one of the nation's largest taxpayer contracts programs, awarding some $2.3 billion annually to contractors across the country.

But as a ProPublica investigation has found, state after state has been dismantling its workers' comp system, denying injured workers help when they need it most and shifting the cost of work-related disabilities onto public programs like Social Security Disability Insurance.

With more than 3.7 million work-related injuries and illnesses reported in 2013, these changes are hurting households across the country. But workers' comp legislation rarely gets significant news coverage, in part because it's such a bureaucratic system that varies state to state.

With this Reporting Recipe, we want to make it easier for journalists to find and report stories on changes in workers' comp policies and the impact on local workers. Read on for reporting tips, data and help finding potential sources.

New laws in 33 states essentially did three things: They reduced benefits, gave employers and insurers more control over medical care or made it more difficult for workers with certain injuries and diseases to qualify.

To give the public a better sense of the national scope of the changes, ProPublica scoured state laws and built a database highlighting the most significant provisions. You can find it here. How have policies changed in your state? What groups or companies influenced those changes? How do they compare to those in neighboring states?

For more context on policies by state, here are a few other resources that might be helpful:

• U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration report on workers' comp changes

• National Academy of Social Insurance annual workers' comp report

• Workers Compensation Research Institute studies

• National Council on Compensation Insurance state presentations

Finally, many state workers' comp systems produce their own annual reports with specific statistics. Be sure to check their websites.

AbilityOne, along with the nonprofit agency that manages its program for the severely disabled, SourceAmerica, are being investigated by authorities for illegal operations, financial fraud, mismanagement, operating in violation of the law, steering of contracts, and possibly obstruction of justice. Several inside sources tell CNN the program is among the worst cases of its type they've ever seen in a federal agency.

CNN has learned the U.S. Department of Justice has begun its own investigation into the various allegations. In addition, at least four separate inspectors general offices have active investigations into AbilityOne and SourceAmerica. The OIG from the General Services Administration, Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration are among those investigating, all led by the Office of Inspector General from the State Department

Just having a job is highly unusual for someone with a disability. Fewer than 1 in 5 disabled adults are employed, one reason so many are poor.

The local United Way has hired Nnaka for a part-time position to talk about the group's work with programs for disabled individuals, including at the Center for Individuals with Physical Challenges, where Nnaka volunteers.

But when he got to the staffing agency, he ran into a number of challenges that those with disabilities often face.

And when Nnaka wheeled up to the front door, he found that there was no button to push to open it automatically. The building was constructed before the ADA, and while ADA standards highly recommend automation of exterior doors, it's not required. He had to wedge the side of one arm under the handle, cracking the door open slightly. He then wiggled his chair back and forth like a crowbar to get in.

When Nnaka got into the tiny elevator, he couldn't turn his chair around to reach the buttons. Fortunately, there was another passenger to help.

Once inside the staffing agency, he had to move the computer mouse slowly with a clenched fist to fill out nine pages of forms.