We receive many comments asking whether working from home is a possibility with the Ticket to Work program. The answer is yes, it can be!
So which program should taxpayers fund? That depends upon what the taxpayers want. Supported employment enables people with disabilities to become competitively employed within their communities. Sheltered workshops provide constant supervision and structure.
However, on just a monetary level, supported employment costs substantially less than sheltered workshops. Moreover, for every dollar need to operate supported employment, taxpayers receive $1.46 back in taxes paid, reduction in governmental subsidies, and forgonecosts of alternative programs. In these respects, supported employment is the best investmentfor taxpayers.
The website this overview came from is interesting as well, but is slow to load: http://thecpsd.org/
A recent report in The Times laid bare the neglect and abuse of the developmentally disabled, chronicling the lives of a group of men who spent more than 30 years eviscerating turkeys at an obscure Iowa factory. In return, they got room, board and $65 a month. Advocates finally succeeded last year in winning a lawsuit to recover damages and decades of back pay.
The need to end the economic servitude and social exile of people with disabilities has long been clear. The Providence agreement is a promising but overdue starting point.
After much criticism, the Department of Education has made it easier in recent years for disabled borrowers to have their federal student loans discharged. But now, as more people are qualifying for loan forgiveness, many of them are running into an unexpected consequence: They are often shocked to learn that they basically exchanged one debt for another, according to consumer advocates and tax and credit specialists.
While millions of debts — including credit cards and mortgages — are canceled each year, the group of borrowers whose loans have been discharged because of a “total and permanent disability” has grown sharply to more than 115,700 in 2013, from nearly 61,600 in 2011 and fewer than 15,000 in 2008, according to the Department of Education. But under current tax law, the amount of debt forgiven is generally taxable, so some disabled borrowers end up with tax bills they cannot afford.
While officials at the U.S. Department of Labor say they are not establishing a firm hiring quota for contractors, they do expect that businesses servicing the government will work toward achieving the target. Contractors that fail to meet the goal and do not show sufficient effort toward reaching the 7 percent threshold could lose their contracts under the new rule.
Disability advocates say the added pressure on federal contractors will go a long way.
“Federal contractors represent 22 percent of the American workforce and an aspirational 7 percent hiring goal means the rule will create real jobs, at all levels of seniority, for Americans with disabilities,” said Mark Perriello, president and CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities.
http://www.realeconomicimpact.org/News.aspx?id=397
Before today’s executive order, workers with disabilities employed by federal contractors could be paid less than minimum wage under Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act. While today’s historic move by the Obama administration extends the higher minimum wage to workers with disabilities employed by federal contractors, Section 14(c) still permits the payment of subminimum wage to hundreds of thousands of workers with disabilities in America’s workforce.
“National Disability Institute wants to express its thanks to President Obama, Secretary of Labor Tom Perez and the Obama administration for taking a major step today to give federal contract workers with disabilities greater access to the economic mainstream by paying them a living wage to advance their financial capability,” said Michael Morris, executive director of National Disability Institute.
This is a video...
It's a business model that goes against an age old corporate stigma. The notion that hiring someone with a disability is more of a burden than an opportunity. That thinking has proven to be the biggest obstacle to the 800,000 disabled Canadians looking for work, but as the CBC's Ioanna Roumeliotis found out, companies adopting newer models are making a huge return on disability.
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Obama said in his State of the Union address earlier this week that he will issue an executive order mandating that federal contractors pay their workers no less than $10.10 per hour.
“In the coming weeks, I will issue an executive order requiring federal contractors to pay their federally-funded employees a fair wage of at least $10.10 an hour — because if you cook our troops’ meals or wash their dishes, you shouldn’t have to live in poverty,” Obama said.
But now advocates say they are being told that the plan excludes people with disabilities who currently earn less than the federal minimum of $7.25 per hour.
Disability advocates who support employment of people with disabilities in the community at typical wages welcomed Governor Scott Walker’s announcement at Wednesday’s State of the State address, marking a new statewide initiative to improve employment rates for Wisconsin residents with disabilities.
The announcement, which Gov. Walker said would call on both state government and Wisconsin businesses to tap into the state’s vast pool of potential workers with disabilities who want to work, is good news for Cindy Bentley, Executive Director of People First Wisconsin.