This Monday, Hillary Clinton proposed something
no major presidential candidate ever had before: paying all disabled workers the minimum wage.
At a campaign event in Madison, Wisconsin, Clinton was asked by Nikki Vander Meulen, an autistic attorney, about her position on Section 14(c), a loophole in the federal minimum wage that allows employers to gain an exemption from the minimum for workers with disabilities. Most Americans don’t even know this loophole exists, but it has been leaving disabled workers to toil in poverty for decades, and disability rights advocates like myself have made repeal a major priority for years.
Clinton pledged to close it: When it comes to jobs, we've got to figure out how we get the minimum wage up and include people with disabilities in the minimum wage.
There should not be a tiered wage, and right now there is a tiered wage when it comes to facilities that do provide opportunities but not at a self-sufficient wage that enables people to gain a degree of independence as far as they can go. So I want us to take a hard look at raising the minimum wage and ending the tiered minimum wages, whether it's for people with disabilities or the tipped wage. … When people talk about raising the minimum wage, they don't always talk about the legal loopholes that we have in it and I want to get rid of those and I want to get rid of that for people with disabilities too.
http://www.vox.com/2016/3/31/1133775...y-minimum-wage