National Council on Disability

October 11, 2018

National Disability 

Employment Policy

From the New Deal to the 

Real Deal: Joining the Industries 

of the Future
National Council on Disability (NCD)

1331 F Street NW, Suite 850

Washington, DC 20004

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future

National Council on Disability, October 11, 2018

This report is also available in alternative formats. Please visit the National Council on Disability (NCD) 

website (www.ncd.gov) or contact NCD to request an alternative format using the following information:

ncd@ncd.gov Email

202-272-2004 Voice

202-272-2022 Fax

The views contained in this report do not necessarily represent those of the Administration, as this and 

all NCD documents are not subject to the A-19 Executive Branch review process.
Letter of Transmittal

October 11, 2018

President Donald J. Trump

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW

Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

The National Council on Disability (NCD) is pleased to present the 2018 Report National Disability 

Employment Policy, From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future.

In this report, NCD revisits the 2012 NCD report Subminimum Wage and Supported Employment, to 

assess the progress made nationally in modernizing employment service systems for people with 

significant disabilities and who are blind, including settings that pay subminimum wages under Section 

14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act. In the 2012 report, NCD called for the phase out of Section 14(c) 

employment nationally and the phase up of supported employment services offered in competitive 

integrated employment. Six years later, NCD renews its recommendation for the phase out of Section 

14(c) and phase up of supported employment services; evaluates the progress that the country has 

made toward that end; highlights the structural barriers that remain; and clearly identifies the risks 

should service systems not modernize.

In addition, this report highlights with particularity successful examples of transformation from 

six states where providers have transitioned services from sheltered workshops that paid 14(c) 

subminimum wages to rival models of individualized supported and customized employment services 

that allow people with disabilities to work and thrive in competitive integrated employment.

NCD submits this report at a crucial moment. Rising societal expectations, recent changes in law 

and policy, innovations in the field of supported employment, and new technologies have significantly 

advanced the employment prospects of people with disabilities in the United States. Yet, the 80-yearold Section 14(c) exemption to the federal minimum wage has remained in place without significant 

change for decades. Continued disruptions to the economy by automation, advanced manufacturing, 

and emerging technologies have meant that the very nature of work has and will continue to change 

for all Americans. As a consequence, Section 14(c) employment is even more evidently outdated and 

ineffective than it was six years ago. This report chronicles that a new national consensus has emerged 

that the time is now to modernize employment service systems to move from New Deal subminimum 

wages to “real deal” jobs in the mainstream of the economy. For people with disabilities to experience 

full participation in the 21st century economy, they must be supported to be the entrepreneurs, 

inventors, and businesspeople of the future.

National Council on Disability

An independent federal agency making recommendations to the President and Congress 

to enhance the quality of life for all Americans with disabilities and their families.

1331 F Street, NW ■ Suite 850 ■ Washington, DC 20004

202-272-2004 Voice ■ 202-272-2074 TTY ■ 202-272-2022 Fax ■ www.ncd.gov
NCD looks forward to working with the Administration to ensure that Americans with disabilities are 

supported and encouraged to take their rightful place in the 21st century economy.

Respectfully,

Neil Romano

Chairman

(The same letter of transmittal was sent to the President Pro Tempore of the U.S. Senate and the Speaker of the 

U.S. House of Representatives.)

2 National Council on Disability
National Council on Disability Members and Staff

Members

Neil Romano, Chairman

Benro Ogunyipe, Vice Chairperson

Billy Altom

Rabia Belt

James Brett

Daniel Gade

Andrés Gallegos

Wendy S. Harbour

Clyde Terry

Staff

Phoebe Ball, Legislative Affairs Specialist

Stacey S. Brown, Staff Assistant

Joan M. Durocher, General Counsel & Director of Policy

Lisa Grubb, Executive Director

Netterie Lewis, Administrative Support Specialist

Amy Nicholas, Attorney Advisor

Nicholas Sabula, Public Affairs Specialist

Amged Soliman, Attorney Advisor

Anne Sommers, Director of Legislative Affairs & Outreach

Ana Torres-Davis, Attorney Advisor

Keith Woods, Financial Management Analyst

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 3
PB4 National Council on Disability National Council on Disability
Table of Contents

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  

Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

List of Acronyms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  1

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Chapter 1: Findings and Recommendations from 2012 14(c) 

Report and Aftermath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  2

Chapter 2: Longitudinal Data Trends for 14(c) and Integrated Employment . . . . . . . .  2

Chapter 3: Recent Changes in Law and Policy Impacting the 14(c) Program . . . . . . .  3

Background: New Deal Era Disability Employment Program . . . . . . . . . .  3

Section 14(c) of FLSA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3

JWOD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3

Changes in the Legal Landscape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3

Title II of the ADA and Olmstead v. L.C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

WIOA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3

WIOA: Definition of Competitive Integrated Employment . . . . . . . . .  3

WIOA: Statutory and Regulatory Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3

Current Policy Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3

Stakeholder Feedback on the Changing Legal Landscape 

and Definition of Competitive Integrated Employment . . . . . . . . . .  4

Chapter 4: Characteristics of Profit-Making Businesses in the 14(c) Program . . . . . .  4

School Work Experience Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4

Business Establishment List...

Patient Worker List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4

Community Rehabilitation Program List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5

The Role of Private Business in Sustaining Subminimum Wages . . . . . .  5

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 5
Chapter 5: Observations and Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6

New England Tour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6

Rhode Island . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6

Purpose of Visit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6

Summary of Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6

Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6

Key Success Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6

Obstacles and Solutions to Transformation Success . . . . . . . . . .  6

Maine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6

Purpose of Visit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6

Summary of Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6

Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6

Key Success Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7

Obstacles and Solutions to Transformation Success . . . . . . . . . .  7

Vermont...

Purpose of Visit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7

Summary of Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7

Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7

Key Success Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7

Obstacles and Solutions to Transformation Success . . . . . . . . . .  7

Massachusetts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7

Purpose of Visit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7

Summary of Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7

Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7

Key Success Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7

Obstacles and Solutions to Transformation Success . . . . . . . . . .  7

West Coast Tour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7

Oregon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7

Purpose of Visit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7

Summary of Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7

Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8

Key Success Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8

PB6 National Council on Disability National Council on Disability
Obstacles and Solutions to Transformation Success . . . . . . . . . .  8

Shared Expectations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8

Washington . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8

Purpose of Visit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8

Summary of Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9

Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9

Key Success Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9

Obstacles and Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9

Shared Expectations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9

Chapter 6: Recommendations for Federal Agencies, Congress, 

and the President . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9

Phasing Out Section 14(c) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9

Incubating New High-Quality Supported Employment 

Providers and Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Supporting Transformation of Sheltered Workshop Providers . . . . . . 107

Supporting States to Transform Their Employment Systems . . . . . . . 108

Using Technology to Facilitate Employment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Increasing Availability of Qualified Trained Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

Evaluating Cost-Efficiencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

Business Engagement and Outreach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Increasing Self-Sufficiency and Self-Determination during 

Non-Work Hours . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

Benefits Counseling and Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

Disconnecting the Availability of Medicaid Benefits 

for People with Disabilities from Income and Assets . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Appendix A: Research Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12

Interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12

Site Visits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12

Telephone Surveys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12

Online Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12

Employment Data Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12

Contract Data Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12

Endnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 7
PB8 National Council on Disability National Council on Disability
Acknowledgments

The National Council on Disability wishes to thank Inclusivity Strategic Consulting, particularly Regina 

Kline, Esq., and her team—Eve L. Hill, Esq., and research assistants Katelyn Graham and Margi 

Hughes, and their partner national subject matter expert, Ruby Moore, for their work in developing 

this report. NCD also thanks those who shared their personal experiences and offered expert input to 

inform this report.

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 9
10 National Council on Disability
F

or the past half century, the United States 

has been on the leading edge of the 

advancement of people with disabilities in 

the world. Through its federal laws, the country 

has championed the rights of people with 

disabilities to fully participate in all aspects of 

American life, including where they live, learn, 

work, and interact with peers in the community. 

These seminal statutes, including Title XIX of the 

Social Security Act of 1965 (“Medicaid Act”), 

the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (“Rehab Act”), 

the Education for All Handicapped Children 

Act of 1975 (EHCA) (the predecessor statute 

to the Individuals with Disabilities Education 

Act (IDEA) of 1997), the Developmental 

Disabilities Act of 1984, and the Americans with 

Disabilities Act of 1990 (“ADA”), precipitated 

many important changes to the very structure 

of American society, including a movement 

toward deinstitutionalization and full community 

inclusion.

For example, since 1968, there has been a 

marked decline in the institutionalized population 

of people with intellectual and developmental 

disabilities living in state-run institutions in the 

United States.1 During the same period, students 

with disabilities have experienced the right to a 

free and appropriate public education,2 including 

an education in the least restrictive environment 

alongside their nondisabled peers.3 And millions 

of adults with disabilities access health care 

through the Medicaid program in their homes and 

communities and not in institutions.

As a result, today, many young people 

with disabilities have come of age in an 

America where they live at home and in their 

communities, go to school with nondisabled 

peers, navigate their cities and towns free 

from the physical and architectural barriers that 

formerly existed, and hold increasingly higher 

expectations of themselves and others for a selfdetermined life in the community.

Despite these significant advancements, 

however, the country and its public institutions 

are still grappling with the reality that full 

inclusion is more than mere physical proximity 

in the community, it is also economic. While 

thousands of Americans with intellectual and 

developmental disabilities, blindness, and other 

disabilities have moved out of segregated 

residential institutions and now live and attend 

school in community settings, many such 

people, nevertheless, still lack access to typical 

jobs in the mainstream of the economy, or 

competitive integrated employment, and in turn, 

the resources and supports that they need to be 

fully engaged in civic and recreational activities 

during the hours that they are not working. Many 

of these same people can and want to work 

and contribute as taxpayers and consumers but 

Executive Summary

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 11
are restricted from doing so by considerable 

structural barriers to employment.

Importantly, as will be explored in depth in 

this report, even despite NCD’s 2012 policy 

recommendation to phase out the practice, 

there remain approximately 321,1314 Americans 

with disabilities who, even while living in the 

community, still earn subminimum wages 

in segregated sheltered workshops under 

Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, an 

80-year-old policy relic from President Franklin 

Roosevelt’s administration. Correspondingly, in 

2017, the unemployment rate for people with a 

disability (those who did not have a job, were 

available for work, and were actively looking for 

a job in the 4 weeks preceding the survey) was 

9.2 percent, more than twice that of those with 

no disability.5 Put differently, data demonstrate 

that the labor force participation rate of people 

with disabilities, those who are working or 

seeking work, is just 32.6 percent compared 

to 75.8 percent of the general population.6 This 

gap has remained persistently wide over the 

past decade, and signals that a disproportionate 

number of working-age adults with disabilities 

are not engaged in any kind of work or seeking 

work each year. For people with intellectual and 

developmental disabilities (I/DD), the disparity in 

employment participation is even more profound. 

Data suggest that in 2014–2015, only 16 percent 

of working-age adults supported by state I/DD 

agencies were employed in a paid job in the 

community.7

Thus, without economic security, millions 

of Americans with disabilities who now live in 

the community are shut out of the full range of 

opportunities derived from being there, quite 

simply because without a job, they cannot afford, 

access, or even aspire to such benefits. In turn, 

employers, local economies, and communities 

are deprived of such persons’ economic, civic, 

and social contributions. As more fully discussed 

below, NCD recognizes that the economic 

disenfranchisement of 14(c) workers in particular 

is not solely a policy issue created and enlivened 

by government programs and, therefore, capable 

of resolution through government interventions 

alone.

Indeed, the prevalence of 14(c) subminimum 

wage programs and the concomitant absence 

in the labor force of people with disabilities 

has consequences, in real terms, for the 

overall economy. Solutions lie as much in 

coordination with, increased accountability for, 

and identification of the needs of the private 

sector businesses as in reform of federal, state, 

and local government systems. As this report 

explores, the private sector’s footprint has 

been firmly planted for decades in sheltered 

workshops that employ people with disabilities 

at subminimum wages to supply goods or 

services to companies, while, dissonantly, many 

of the same companies have adopted forwardleaning corporate disability diversity, inclusion, 

recruitment, and hiring practices. The time has 

come for such companies to create the kind of 

transparency and accountability that extends the 

length of the supply chain, and to capitalize upon 

a talent pipeline created by qualified people with 

disabilities who have access to federal- and statefunded supported employment services.

In NCD’s view, the issue of 14(c) employment 

and labor force participation of people with 

disabilities remains of great significance to 

the overall health of our nation’s economy 

and society. According to the United Nations, 

countries worldwide forego up to 7 percent of 

gross domestic product due to the exclusion of 

12 National Council on Disability
people with disabilities.8

 More to the point, one 

of the primary purposes of enacting the ADA 

was for people with disabilities to be “a new 

source[] of workers” for American business, 

and for federal law to remove barriers to work, 

including discrimination and segregation, to 

assist such people to “move proudly into the 

economic mainstream of American life.”9 Yet, the 

achievement of equal opportunity in employment 

for people with disabilities remains an important, 

however unrealized, goal nearly 30 years after the 

signing of the ADA, as people with disabilities 

remain disproportionately poor, unemployed and 

underemployed, and face significant barriers to 

joining and remaining in the American middle 

class. Perhaps no segment of the disability 

population experiences these negative effects 

and barriers to financial self-sufficiency more than 

people who continue to earn subminimum wages 

in exchange for their labor.

Since the National Council on Disability’s 

report Subminimum Wage and Supported 

Employment (“2012 Report”),10 the landscape of 

law and policy has been considerably expanded 

to improve the access of those in or at risk of 

14(c) sheltered employment and those with 

the most severe disabilities to competitive 

integrated employment. These changes include 

new requirements under the Rehabilitation 

Act of 1973 as reauthorized and revised by 

the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act 

(WIOA), the Center for Medicare and Medicaid 

Services’ (CMS) Home and Community Based 

Services Rule, Executive Order 13658, Section 

501 and Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act, 

and increased enforcement of the ADA and 

Olmstead v. L.C. Nevertheless, the 80-year-old 

Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) 14(c) exemption, 

and the related Javits-Wagner-O’Day Act (JWOD), 

have remained in place, without significant 

revision for decades.

Consequently, federal- and state-funded 

employment service providers across the country 

still grapple with providing employment services 

within fossilized systems in a dynamically 

changing legal and policy environment. As they 

straddle the requirements of new and old laws, 

providers confront significant barriers, as the 

intended outcomes of many employment funding 

sources, programs, and services still conform 

to models that were conceived of more than 

50 years before the ADA, when legal protections 

were based in a manufacturing-based economy, 

and at a time when people with disabilities were 

largely absent from the labor market altogether 

and, as a result, employment was conflated 

with charity.

This report comes at a time when the 

very meaning of work is being reexamined 

and redefined once again by and for workers 

with and without disabilities alike. The nation’s 

economy is increasingly digital, mechanized, and 

informational, and the physical world is steadily 

being reimagined and realigned to keep pace 

with new technologies. Yet, many people with 

disabilities in 14(c) employment, including those 

with intellectual and developmental disabilities or 

who are blind, remain, in large part, locked out of 

these changes, and confined to physical brickand-mortar sheltered workshops where they 

perform manual tasks that are often mismatched 

with their particular strengths and also with 

their preferences and interests as employees. 

Such people continue to perform the jobs of a 

bygone era, often using outdated equipment, and 

relying on physical strength and coordination, 

even though new technologies, services, and 

supports exist that would allow them to succeed 

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 13
in competitive integrated employment. Moreover, 

the economy has sent strong signals that 

demand for such piecework jobs is withering; 

likely avoiding modernization is not an option 

even in the relatively short term.

Nevertheless, there remain structural 

blockades, powerful financial incentives, and 

the need for enhanced dialogue with selfadvocates, parents, and families. The formative 

focus of leaders and policymakers is called to 

break through barriers to transformation and 

modernization of the 14(c) program. Moreover, 

employment providers that want to innovate, 

reinvent, and modernize their services to be 

responsive to the preferences of people with 

disabilities, their families, and employers, 

and the changing laws and, importantly, the 

new demands of the market, need technical 

assistance (TA)and financial support to do so. 

And the time to begin this effort is now, as the 

early innings of the new century of employment 

are being played, and the structures of the last 

century continue to bench talented players in 

the dugout.

This report has evaluated the nation’s 

progress in shifting away from subminimum 

wage and segregated labor models for 

people with disabilities, while examining 

the barriers that remain to doing so. The 

National Council on Disability renews its 

2012 recommendation to the President and 

Congress for the phase out of Section 14(c), 

expands upon that recommendation, and 

issues new recommendations for supporting 

the rebalancing of existing 14(c) programs to 

phase-in 21st century jobs and incubate new 

employment service models to advance the 

future employment of people with disabilities in 

competitive integrated employment in the United 

States.

Among NCD’s recommendations in this 2018 

Report are to:

■ impose a moratorium on the issuance of any 

new 14(c) certificates;

■ strengthen overall enforcement of the 14(c) 

program;

■ significantly expand and build increased 

capacity for sustained funding for integrated 

supported and customized employment;

■ enhance the availability of intensive TA 

resources, qualified and trained staff, 

peer-to-peer networks and family supports, 

and improve the availability of benefits 

counseling resources;

■ implement business engagement strategies; 

and

■ introduce and develop new resources 

and innovations, while leveraging existing 

resources, to allow people with disabilities 

to access 21st century jobs and the 

industries of the future.

14 National Council on Disability
List of Acronyms

“2012 Report” Subminimum Wage and Supported Employment

AAPD American Association of People with Disabilities

ACF Administration for Children and Families

ACL Administration for Community Living

ACRE Association of Community Rehabilitation Educators

ADA Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990

AIDD Administration on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

AJC American Job Center

APSE Association for People Supporting Employment First

AUCD Association of University Centers on Disabilities

BEL Business Establishment List

BLS Bureau of Labor Statistics

CESP Certified Employment Support Professional

Champlain Champlain Community Services

CIE Competitive Integrated Employment

CMS Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services’

CRP Community Rehabilitation Program

CSAVR Council of State Administrators of Vocational Rehabilitation

CWICs Certified Work Incentives Counselors

DBHDD Department of Behavioral Health, Developmental Disabilities

DCAMM Commonwealth of Massachusetts-Division of Capital Asset Management

DDS Department of Developmental Services

DEI Disability Equality Index

DLC-MA Disability Law Center of Massachusetts

DOJ U.S. Department of Justice

DOL U.S. Department of Labor

DSU Designated State Unit

ED U.S. Department of Education

EEOC Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

EHA Education for All Handicapped Children Act

EHCA Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975

ETA Employment and Training Administration

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 15
FAPE free and appropriate public education

FLSA Fair Labor Standards Act

GAO General Accounting Office

GM general manager

HHS U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

HR Human Resources

I/DD intellectual and developmental disabilities

IDEA Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1997

JWOD Javits Wagner O’Day Act

KFI Katahdin Friends, Inc.

LABB Lexington, Arlington, Burlington, Bedford, Belmont

LRE least restrictive environment

Medicaid Act Title XIX of the Social Security Act of 1965

MIG Medicaid Infrastructure Grant

NDRN National Disability Rights Network

NDSS National Down Syndrome Society

NEBA New England Business Associates

NFB National Federation of the Blind

NGA National Governor’s Association

NIB National Industries for the Blind

NIDLRR National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research

ODC Opportunity Development Centers, Inc.

ODEP Office of Disability Employment Policy

OMEP Oregon Manufacturing Extension Partnership

OSEP Office of Special Education Programs

OSERS Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services

P&A Protection and Advocacy

PAL Partnership for Adult Learning Program

PWL Patient Worker List

Rehab Act Rehabilitation Act of 1973

RIDLT Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training

RSA Rehabilitation Services Administration

SBA Small Business Administration

SCORE Service Corps of Retired Executives

SGA Substantial Gainful Activity

SME subject matter experts

SSA Social Security Administration

SSDI Social Security Disability

SSI Supplemental Security Income

PB16 National Council on Disability National Council on Disability
SWEP School Work Experience Program List

TA technical assistance

TASH Association for the Severely Handicapped

TIME Act Transitioning to Integrated and Meaningful Employment Act

TTAP U.S. Department of Labor’s Training and Technical Assistance to Providers

TVW Tualatin Valley Workshop

VCU Virginia Commonwealth University

VR vocational rehabilitation

WHD Wage and Hour Division

WIN Work Independence Network

WIOA Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act

WISE Washington Initiative for Supported Employment 

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 17
“... the majority of states have now adopt

Employment First policies, making work 

in integrated settings the first and priority 

service option for the employment of people 

with disabilities [including] new plans for 

the expansion of supported employment 

services and concomitant reduction of their 

reliance on sheltered workshops.

PB18 National Council on Disability National Council on Disability
Introduction

T

his report, National Disability Employment 

Policy, From the New Deal to the Real 

Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future, 

evaluates the progress made since the National 

Council on Disability (NCD) issued findings and 

recommendations in its 2012 report Subminimum 

Wage and Supported Employment (“2012 

Report”). The basic purpose of the 2012 report 

was to examine the issue of 14(c) nationwide 

within the framework of the ADA’s requirements 

and principles of equality and opportunity for all, 

and to make recommendations about its use. 

In 2012, after visiting 14(c) programs in seven 

states, and speaking to relevant stakeholders, the 

Committee then recommended the phase-out of 

14(c) employment.

This report, six years later, evaluates 

the progress that the country has made in 

transitioning away from 14(c) certificates, 

highlights persistent, deeply ingrained, structural 

barriers to change, and examines the risks 

imposed should service systems not modernize 

to catch up with significant disruptive changes 

already underway in the economy and to the 

very framework of law and policy. In addition, 

it explores the presence and availability of 

resources to support the transition of providers 

and, in turn, people with disabilities to move 

from segregated service models to competitive 

integrated employment, including 21st century 

jobs. While the 2012 Report explored the systems 

changes necessary to phase out the use of 14(c) 

sheltered workshops, this report explores the 

particular financial influences and restraints that 

continue to pose barriers to that happening or, 

in the alternative, perhaps have slowed the pace 

of transformation for 14(c) certificate-holders. In 

addition, this 2018 Report highlights successful 

examples across six states of transformation 

from segregated sheltered workshops that 

paid 14(c) subminimum wages to models 

of individualized supported and customized 

employment services that allow people with 

disabilities to work in competitive integrated 

employment.

Specifically, the 2018 Report identifies and 

critically examines five main areas: (1) the 

characteristics of for-profit and nonprofit businesses 

that utilize 14(c) certificates; (2) data reflecting 

multiyear trends of Section 14(c) certificates 

by for-profit businesses and the methods used 

by those businesses to employ people with 

disabilities; (3) the regulatory definitions in 34 

C.F.R. part 361 implementing the Rehabilitation 

Act, as amended, by the Workforce Innovation 

and Opportunity Act (WIOA), including, 

specifically, the definition of Competitive 

Integrated Employment; (4) how businesses 

employ nonprofit workshops to fulfill their 

supply chains and the methods used by those 

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 19
businesses to employ people with disabilities; 

and (5) stories from across the nation of 14(c) 

certificate employers who have transitioned 

away from using 14(c) certificates and have 

embraced integrated supported and customized 

employment models. 

NCD is congressionally mandated to 

advise the President, Congress, and other 

policymakers on disability policies and practices 

that enhance equal opportunity for people 

with disabilities to achieve economic selfsufficiency, independent living, and inclusion 

and integration into all aspects of society. 

This report is designed to provide practical, 

strategic, and evidence-based support for 

how federal, state, and local service systems 

can gradually phase out of the 14(c) program, 

as NCD recommended over six years ago, 

and concomitantly transform and modernize 

employment service systems to support people 

with disabilities in the competitive jobs of the 

21st century.

This report is intended to serve as a 

resource for policymakers, and for people with 

disabilities and their advocates, employers, 

service providers, covered entities, enforcement 

agencies, and other stakeholders on how federal, 

state, and local government policies impacting 

employment service systems, together with 

employer and corporate practices, can advance 

people with disabilities’ rightful place in new and 

emerging economies and the many other aspects 

of American life that come within reach through 

economic empowerment and advancement. The 

2012 Report is also intended to help agencies, 

advocates, and covered entities make the 

connection between the content of the report 

and how they can implement modernization and 

transformation strategies and practices in their 

states.

20 National Council on Disability
Chapter 1: Findings and Recommendations 

from 2012 14(c) Report and Aftermath

NCD’s 2012 Report stated that “the 

Section 14(c) program should be phased 

out gradually to provide adequate time 

for transition to new alternatives . . . [and that] 

what is needed is a conversion or transformation 

strategy and phase-out of a relic in policy left over 

from the 1930s.”11 At the time of NCD’s 2012 

recommendation, no state or local government 

had eliminated the payment of subminimum 

wages through legislation, and only a few states, 

including Vermont, Maine, and Washington, had 

taken concrete steps either to stop funding new 

entrants to its sheltered workshop system or to 

dramatically reduce its reliance on such settings.

Now, six years later, Maryland, Alaska, New 

Hampshire, and the city of Seattle have passed 

legislation banning the payment of subminimum 

wages. And as a result of court-ordered ADA and 

Olmstead settlement agreements brought by the 

U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) or by DOJ and 

private plaintiffs, Rhode Island and Oregon have 

ended funding for all new entrants to sheltered 

workshops. Those two states have shifted 

resources to integrated transition, supported 

employment, and customized employment 

services provided in competitive integrated 

employment. Moreover, under E.O. 13658, 

federal contractors are now required to pay a 

minimum wage floor of $10.10 per hour (as of 

January 1, 2018, it increased to $10.35 per hour) 

on all federal service contracts, including through 

14(c) entities that participate in the AbilityOne 

program.

In addition, the majority of states have now 

adopted Employment First policies, making 

work in integrated settings the first and priority 

service option for the employment of people with 

disabilities. States across the country have also 

begun exploring changes to their rate structures, 

and new plans for the expansion of supported 

employment services and concomitant reduction 

of their reliance on sheltered workshops.

The past several years have given credence 

to NCD’s initial 2012 policy recommendations, 

as the country witnessed congressional support 

for expanding access to individual supported 

employment and customized employment 

strategies through systems change and limiting 

the use of 14(c) certificates. Enactment of 

WIOA put concrete limits on the payment 

of subminimum wages and required 14(c) 

employers to take affirmative steps to afford both 

youth and adults with information that would 

allow them to make meaningful and informed 

choices about working in competitive integrated 

employment.

Moreover, in September 2016, after a series of 

public hearings and intensive study of the issue, 

the WIOA Advisory Committee on Increasing 

Competitive Integrated Employment for 

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 21
The 2012 Report, among other things, laid a framework for states to take a “systems change 

approach,” as NCD recommended:

■ Gradual Phase Out of 14(c) Certificates: the gradual phase out of the 14(c) program 

nationally to allow time for transition to new alternatives, and an increase in supported 

employment services in integrated settings;

■ Rates Changes and Infrastructure: that states set reimbursement rates to reflect a 

preference for integrated employment settings over segregated settings; explore the 

incorporation of performance-based payment systems for employment services; and 

promote infrastructure grants and interagency collaboration (between developmental 

disability, vocational rehabilitation [VR], and school agencies) in establishing seamless 

funding systems;

■ Benefits Planning: that federal TA resources be expanded and made specifically available 

to people transitioning out of subminimum wage settings to offset the often complex and 

bureaucratic nature of current information governing the impact of earned income on public 

benefits;

■ Peer-to-Peer Support: that federal and state support for peer-to-peer mentoring programs 

be expanded to ensure that people with disabilities who are in 14(c) employment 

and contemplating entering competitive integrated employment have access to peer 

and family supports to assist them to make meaningful and informed choices about 

employment;

■ Informed Choices, Information, and Referral: as the “need for knowledge is great” for 

those who have had very few opportunities to learn about the possibility for competitive 

integrated employment, after having been in subminimum wage or sheltered employment 

(often for decades at a time), that 14(c) sheltered workshops provide information and 

notice about the availability of integrated supported employment services and, where 

appropriate, referral to them for interested service recipients.

■ Education Systems Change(s): that education systems take concrete steps to align 

educational curriculum and transition planning with postsecondary outcomes in integrated 

settings including in competitive integrated employment and by providing opportunities 

for paid work in integrated settings before students leave school and access to a rigorous 

school completion document (high school diploma).

22 National Council on Disability
Individuals with Disabilities, a federally appointed 

panel of subject matter experts (SMEs) and other 

key stakeholders, recommended that the 14(c) 

program be phased out over multiple years while 

various systems change strategies are phased 

in and up nationwide.12 In addition, in recent 

years, large stakeholder organizations have called 

for 14(c)’s phase-out, including the National 

Federation of the Blind (NFB), the Council of 

State Administrators of Vocational Rehabilitation 

(CSAVR), and the Association for People 

Supporting Employment First (APSE).13 The U.S. 

AbilityOne Program, among the largest sources 

of employment of people with disabilities in the 

United States, whose affiliates substantially 

participate as 14(c) certificate-holders (as will 

be explored later in this report), issued a policy 

statement in 2016 stating:

the Commission recognizes that Federal 

policies have changed since the JavitsWagner-O’Day Act was passed into law 

in 1971. Today, the Commission and our 

society have higher expectations that, 

through increased emphasis on technology, 

rehabilitation engineering and other 

supports, people with disabilities will be 

able to participate as fully capable and 

productive workers. To remain viable, the 

AbilityOne Program must be recognized 

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 23
as effectively offering quality employment 

and equitable wages, including competitive 

integrated employment opportunities.14

(emphasis added).

In addition, AbilityOne’s Central Non-Profit, 

the National Industries for the Blind (NIB), 

has encouraged its affiliates to pay workers 

at least minimum wage. NFB, Association for 

the Severely Handicapped, the National Down 

Syndrome Society (NDSS), and other groups, 

support the Transitioning to Integrated and 

Meaningful Employment (“TIME”) Act, pending 

congressional legislation introduced in 2015 

and, again in 2017, which proposes to phase out 

Section 14(c) over multiple years.15

24 National Council on Disability
Chapter 2: Longitudinal Data Trends for 14(c) 

and Integrated Employment

L

ongitudinal data reveals that while the 

payment of subminimum wages across 

the past few decades has experienced 

a downward trend, participation in segregated 

employment and day settings has increased 

overall. Consequently, the elimination of 

subminimum wages, alone, likely will not improve 

the disability employment rate, or precipitate 

on-boarding into competitive integrated 

employment, for those previously in segregated 

employment. Such data contextualizes the 

importance of a holistic systems change 

approach to phasing out 14(c) while phasing 

in necessary infrastructure and support for 

integrated employment strategies.

Data from the Wage and Hour Division (WHD) 

at the Department of Labor confirms that the 

use of 14(c) certificates has been nearly cut in 

half over the past decade. According to WHD, 

the total number of certificate applications has 

declined from 2,540 certificate applications in 

FY 2008 to just 1,089 certificate applications in 

FY 2017. Table 1 illustrates this downward trend 

over the past decade.

WHD maintains four spreadsheets that list 

current 14(c) certificate-holders, classified based 

Table 1: Number of 14(c) Certificate Applications Per Year; Renewal Applications 

Per Year; and 14(c) Certificates Per Year

Fiscal Year Certificate Applications Renewal Applications Certificates Issued

2008 2,540 2,354 2,534

2009 2,506 2,299 2,496

2010 2,295 2,164 2,281

2011 2,221 2,074 2,214

2012 2,235 2,076 2,196

2013 2,190 1,918 2,154

2014 1,919 1,700 1,867

2015 1,529 1,453 1,493

2016 1,360 1,285 1,303

2017 1,089 1,051 866

Data Source: WHD 2018.

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 25
on the type of 14(c) certificate issued.16 In 2001, 

the Government Accountability Office reported 

the number of 14(c) certificate workers in each 

setting (Table 2).

For the past several years, WHD has 

reported on its spreadsheets the total number 

of employees self-reported by employers, as 

reflected in their 14(c) certificate applications. 

See Table 3. This number consists of the 

number of workers who were paid subminimum 

wages by the certificate-holder during the 

most recently completed fiscal quarter, as 

reported by the employer on the certificate 

application. According to WHD, the total number 

of employees, therefore, is not an exact count 

and is only representative of the employer’s 

information based on specific and different 

points in time for each employer.18 Moreover, if 

14(c) certificate applications are in “pending” 

status with WHD, the total number of people 

reported on those certificates is not included in 

the sum. For instance, Table 3 omits the total 

number of people employed by three hundred 

and sixty-three (363) 14(c) employers whose 

applications are currently pending, and WHD 

declined to provide how many 14(c) employees 

those employers serve, as such information was 

deemed not publicly available.

Thus, the total number of 14(c) workers 

reflected in WHD data is not a census 

number, rather it is a point-in-time employerreported survey. NCD finds WHD’s current 

data for the total number of 14(c) workers 

inadequate to accurately represent the precise 

Table 2: Number and Percentage of 14(c) Workers by Type of Employer in 2001

Type of Employer Number of 14(c) Workers Percentage

Work Centers 400,440 94.

Businesses 1,549 0.

Hospital or Other Residential Care Facility 19,307 4.

Schools 2,290 0.

Total 423,586 100

Data Source: 2001 GAO Report17

Table 3: Number and Percentage of 14(c) Workers by Type of Employer in 2018

Type of Employer Number of 14(c) Workers Percentage

Work Centers 299,941 93.

Businesses 526 0.

Hospital or Other Residential Care Facility 10,864 3.

Schools 9800 3.

Total 321,131 100

Data Source: WHD Website20

26 National Council on Disability
size of the population currently employed 

by 14(c) certificate-holders or those earning 

subminimum wages. WHD has reported plans 

to transition from a paper to an electronic 

database system for its 14(c) applications, but it 

has yet to do so.

Based on the available estimated number, 

however, WHD currently reports a total of 

141,081 people paid under 14(c) certificates in 

2018, approximately only a third of the number 

of 14(c) workers reported by the GAO 17 years 

ago. However, in the same month that it supplied 

NCD with this data, it provided a wildly different 

estimate to Congress of approximately 321,131 

workers employed by 14(c) certificate-holders, 

closer to GAO’s original estimate.19 WHD has 

clarified that the 141,081 

estimate represents only 

those workers employed 

at the certificate-holder’s 

main establishment, 

whereas 321,131 

represents the estimated 

total of workers 

employed at all establishments associated with 

the certificate-holder. Nevertheless, according 

to the data supplied to NCD for this report, the 

number of people covered by 14(c) certificates 

has correspondingly declined as reported in 

each type of work setting since the time of the 

GAO report.

Unfortunately, however, the country has 

not experienced a corresponding increase in 

14(c) workers entering competitive integrated 

employment. In fact, despite a highwater mark 

in several states, the overall tide for supported 

employment has been receding over the course 

of the last two decades. It has been widely 

documented that the integrated employment rate 

expanded rapidly during the 1980s and 1990s 

because of key federal investments in supported 

employment and the expansion in awareness of 

technical guidance and expertise in it.

For example, systems change grants provided 

by the Rehabilitation Services Administration 

throughout the 1980s to states like Vermont and 

Oregon provided core support for shifting away 

from segregated employment to integrated 

employment as the preferred service outcome, 

including through important changes to rate 

structures and access to high-quality TA. Yet, this 

additional infrastructure was not consistently 

funded over time, and efforts at transformation, 

therefore, waned.

At its apex, the integrated employment rate 

for people receiving 

services from a state 

I/DD agency was 25 

percent in 2001.21 It then 

declined to 20.3 percent 

in 2009. According to a 

survey by Daria Domin 

and John Butterworth 

of the Institute for Community Inclusion at the 

University of Massachusetts Boston, of 190 

U.S. community rehabilitation providers, only 

17.5 percent of 33,874 adults with I/DD served 

in FY2014–2015 worked for pay in individual jobs 

with either time-limited or ongoing supports.22 At 

the same time, participation in facility-based and 

non-work services had grown.23

The decline in subminimum wage certificateholders and the corresponding reliance on 

segregated non-work settings nationally requires 

careful consideration of where workers with 

disabilities might be going, or remaining, if 

such people are not proceeding to competitive 

integrated employment.

[D]espite a highwater mark in 

several states, the overall tide for 

supported employment has been 

receding over the course of the last 

two decades

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 27
Many community rehabilitation providers have 

historically participated in the 14(c) program, 

while also participating in other programs like the 

AbilityOne program, state set-aside contracts, 

and contract work for private customers. 

Mostly, 14(c) entities are nonprofit organizations 

established to provide services and supports to 

people with disabilities. To provide such support, 

they receive funding through federal, state, local, 

and grant funds, and charitable contributions, in 

addition to the contract revenue that they receive. 

In this regard, by their very nature, sheltered 

workshops often harbor a split personality as 

both an employer and a 

service provider.

As the data makes 

clear, over the past 

two decades, many 

sheltered workshops 

as employers may have 

reduced their reliance 

on 14(c) or eliminated 

it; yet, on average, they 

have not correspondingly 

reduced the number of 

people they employ, or 

alternatively, that they 

serve in settings reserved almost exclusively for 

people with disabilities, except paid support staff.

In other instances, AbilityOne contractors can 

often pay above minimum wage, but less than 

prevailing wage, while maintaining segregated 

production facilities, including where 75 percent 

of all direct labor hours are legally required to be 

provided by workers with severe disabilities or 

who are blind. NIB production facilities across the 

country include thousands of blind workers who 

perform manual tasks, like assembling Skilcraft 

pens, sewing military apparel, and packaging 

products for the federal government. Many such 

facilities previously utilized 14(c) certificates but 

now pay at or above minimum wage, while their 

workers, for the most part, never transitioned 

from the jobs that they were previously 

performing in such segregated facilities. Instead 

they simply received a pay increase. These 

workers are no longer reflected in the overall 

number of 14(c) employees, yet they do add 

to the total number of workers that remain in 

segregated settings. Other AbilityOne workers, 

including those with severe disabilities, may 

work for 14(c) certificateholders, but not receive 

subminimum wages, 

even though workers 

performing on other 

private contracts in the 

same facility do. They, 

too, are not reflected 

in any census number 

tracked by WHD.

In fact, the WHD does 

not keep track of either 

the total number of 

AbilityOne workers in the 

14(c) program or the total number of AbilityOne 

employers that are also 14(c) certificate-holders. 

We researched and obtained this information for 

purposes of this report from publicly available 

information, as discussed in chapter 4. However, 

if WHD regularly compiled and updated the 

information, it would assist policymakers to 

discern whether the structure, and the legal 

requirements, of the AbilityOne program have 

long-term impacts on transformation efforts with 

regard to employment service models.

The decline in subminimum 

wage certificate-holders and 

the corresponding reliance on 

segregated non-work settings 

nationally requires careful 

consideration of where workers 

with disabilities might be going, 

or remaining, if such people are 

not proceeding to competitive 

integrated employment

28 National Council on Disability
Other providers may stop paying the workers’ 

wages altogether, as they move them to 

other segregated settings like day programs, 

group employment or enclaves, respite or 

other settings under the same provider’s 

service umbrella; and these workers would 

not be reflected in the overall number of 14(c) 

employees.

Limitations on the data collected by WHD 

prevent a meaningful understanding of what 

percentage of workers with disabilities in 14(c) 

settings remain in those settings while making 

at or above minimum wage, or, in the alternative, 

remain with the same provider in group 

employment, day, respite, or other segregated 

settings after they no longer receive a special 

minimum wage, as others in the same facility 

might receive.

Moreover, as WHD staff do not follow up with 

employers who fail to renew a 14(c) certificate, 

the DOL and the public lack an understanding 

as to why certificates are not renewed. This 

does not come without some substantial risk 

to those employers. In March 2018, a WHD 

investigation and litigation resulted in a federal 

jury verdict against the Randolph County 

Sheltered Workshop, Inc., in West Virginia. The 

court ordered the workshop to pay back wages 

to 34 employees for operating, and paying 

subminimum wages, without a 14(c) certificate 

and failing to post required information about the 

rights of people paid subminimum wages.

Given the outcome of this recent WHD 

investigation, NCD remains concerned that 

employers may continue to pay subminimum 

wages without a certificate because oversight is 

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 29
severely lacking. Seventeen years ago, the GAO 

noted that the WHD “did little to ensure that 

employers whose 14(c) certificates have expired 

do not continue to pay workers special minimum 

wages.”24 As it has in a related report Has the 

Promise Been Kept?: Federal Enforcement of 

Disability Rights Laws25, NCD recommends that 

the WHD collect and systematically track how 

many 14(c) certificates have expired, and the 

reasons for the expiration and the nonrenewal of 

the certificate.

It is also likely that macroeconomic trends 

have influenced the estimated decline in the 

number of 14(c) certificates nationwide. Many 

of the more than 160 people in 26 states 

contacted or interviewed 

for this report noted 

that private piecework 

contracts that were 

historically relied upon 

as an important source 

of 14(c) employment 

are “drying up” as 

companies that are customers of workshops are 

increasingly automating the kind of rote manual 

tasks performed in them (like sorting, sealing, 

and assembling) and other service-based tasks 

(like grounds maintenance, janitorial/cleaning, 

food service). For example, in Rhode Island, 

the jewelry industry once dominated the 

private contract work performed in sheltered 

workshops, as people with disabilities routinely 

affixed the backs on earrings, assembled 

bracelets, and other tasks on contracts with 

prominent jewelry companies. Disability 

employment providers recalled that before 

Rhode Island’s new policy ending funding for 

all new entrants and phasing out sheltered 

workshops, the amount of jewelry piecework 

given to sheltered workshops had already 

started to precipitously decline, both because 

of the 2008 financial crisis and the inherent 

cost efficiencies to companies in having 

machines instead of people with disabilities 

perform those same tasks. In fact, the Trudeau 

Center in Warwick, Rhode Island, recounted 

that as it undertook steps to place people into 

competitive integrated employment and close 

its sheltered workshop, it contacted the Tiffany’s 

Jewelry Company, a longtime customer of the 

sheltered workshop for decades. Trudeau Center 

staff learned that Tiffany’s (including its point of 

contact in Human Resources [HR]) was unaware 

that people performing work for the company at 

the Center were earning 

subminimum wages 

on their contracts. As 

a result of Trudeau’s 

outreach, however, 

Tiffany’s agreed to 

interview and eventually 

on-board eight of 

Trudeau’s workers with disabilities at wages 

starting between $13.00 and $14.00 per hour 

and trained them on-the-job to manufacture 

jewelry using more advanced technology and 

machinery. Trudeau Center staff commented that 

the equipment in the workshop was decades 

old discarded equipment often donated to the 

workshop, without regard for its efficiencies. 

Whereas workers who were on-boarded to 

Tiffany’s began to receive training on state-ofthe-art manufacturing practices.

Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data confirms 

that the labor typically performed in sheltered 

workshops in exchange for subminimum wages 

is some of the most vulnerable to automation 

in the future. In 2017, workers with a disability 

NCD remains concerned that 

employers may continue to pay 

subminimum wages without a 

certificate because oversight is 

severely lacking

30 National Council on Disability
Table 4: Main Job Families (Susceptibility to Automation or Disruption)

Job Families

Expected 

Change, 

2015–2020

Skills 

Stability

Current Share 

of Female 

Workforce

Ease of 

Recruitment, 

Current

Ease of 

Recruitment, 

2020

Manufacturing and 

Production

■ Assembly and Factory 

Workers

■ Chemical Processing 

Plant Operators

decline

–1.84

62% 9% hard harder

Architecture and 

Engineering

■ Chemical Engineers

■ Civil Engineers

stable

0.73

59% 11% hard harder

Construction and Extraction

■ Mining and Petroleum 

Extraction Workers

■ Construction Laborers

decline

–2.18

72% 9% hard harder

Management

■ Business Services 

and Administration 

Managers

■ Manufacturing, Mining, 

and Construction 

Managers

stable

0.14

44% 11% hard harder

Data Source: World Economic Forum28

were more concentrated than those with no 

disability in service occupations (20.2 percent, 

compared with 17.3 percent) and in production, 

transportation, and material moving occupations 

(14.1 percent versus 11.6 percent).26 Moreover, 

people with disabilities were less likely to work 

in management, professional, and related 

occupations than those without a disability 

(34.1 percent, compared with 39.9 percent). 

The World Economic Forum has recognized many 

of these same industries to be some of the most 

adversely affected by worker displacement from 

new technologies including automation.27 Table 4

outlines how categories of jobs are likely to be 

impacted by automation or economic disruption.

WHD was unable to provide data on 14(c) 

employment by industry classification or 

type. Currently, there is no data kept on the 

type of industry jobs or classification that 

workers formerly in 14(c) employment are 

transitioning to as they are on-boarded into 

competitive integrated employment. In this 

regard, unless provider data is combined at the 

state level, we have no way of knowing with 

particularity how such employees are being 

absorbed into the mainstream labor market. 

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 31
With such information, it would become 

easier to identify in-demand labor sectors 

for people with disabilities and analyze and 

assess the long-term gains to the community 

and the economy resulting from systems 

change efforts. Moreover, the public workforce 

system would be able to highlight with greater 

accuracy whether service systems are effective 

in launching people with disabilities into the 

industries of the future.

Recent changes in law and policy, coupled 

with continued disruptions in the economy 

by technology, are destined to further impact 

the overall population of 14(c) employees 

nationally. Some current certificate-holders 

have signaled resistance to these changes, 

including to the goal of competitive integrated 

employment as defined by WIOA. First, we 

review the background of the subminimum 

wage program and then discuss the legal and 

policy implications of recent changes to that 

framework. Then, we will explore the disability 

community’s views on these changes, including 

the definitions under WIOA.

32 National Council on Disability
Chapter 3: Recent Changes in Law and Policy 

Impacting the 14(c) Program

Since the time of the 2012 Report, 

the landscape of law and policy on 

employment, VR, and transition services 

for people with disabilities has changed in 

several significant, if not transformative, ways; 

yet with no statutory or regulatory changes 

made to Section 14(c) or JWOD, parts of it 

have stubbornly stayed the same. The conflict 

between new and old laws have appeared, in 

some instances, to slow efforts to modernize 

employment service systems.

Background: New Deal Era Disability 

Employment Program

Section 14(c) of FLSA

Since 1938, Section 14(c) has given rise to the 

subminimum wage program, permitting the 

Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department 

of Labor to issue certificates “to the extent 

necessary to prevent the curtailment of 

opportunities for employment,” and permitting 

employers to pay a subminimum wage to a 

person with a disability “whose earning or 

productive capacity is impaired by a physical 

or mental disability, including those relating to 

age or injury, for the work to be performed.”29

Under Section 14(c), workers are paid based on 

their productivity as compared to a nondisabled 

worker performing the same or similar work.30

Thus, for a job that is compensated at $10.00 

per hour, a worker with a disability who has 

been determined to be half as productive as a 

nondisabled worker would earn $5.00 per hour. 

The employer must measure the productivity 

of workers with disabilities every six months 

through time studies.31

The 14(c) program is premised on the theory 

that wages should be downwardly adjusted 

for employees whose disabilities make them 

unable to work in typical work settings because 

they are not as productive as their nondisabled 

peers. This notion is vastly different from the 

post-ADA understanding that accommodations 

serve to remove barriers that may otherwise 

stymie qualified workers with disabilities, so 

they can compete in typical work settings and 

remain productive. In one formulation, under 

14(c), there exists a presumption that disability 

creates insurmountable barriers to productivity 

in the mainstream marketplace and therefore 

people with disabilities need to work in a setting 

designed exclusively for people with disabilities. 

In the other, under the ADA, the mainstream 

work environment imposes barriers that may be 

removed, as long as it is reasonable to do so, and 

not an undue burden to the employer, so that the 

person with a disability has an equal opportunity 

to work as a qualified employee in a job that 

matches his or her individual preferences and 

talents and the needs of the employer.

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 33
The past two decades of research pertaining 

to supported employment reveals that it is easier 

and more effective to place a person in a job that 

matches his or her interests and then train them 

with appropriate services and supports, than 

it is to train someone in a segregated setting 

where they learn skills that are not transferable 

or even desirable in competitive integrated 

employment.32 As the GAO noted in 2001, in 

the latter scenario, just 5 percent of people with 

disabilities ever leave sheltered workshops for 

competitive integrated employment.33 As such, 

the strong consensus of decades of research 

and study is that employment services are most 

successful through individualization, strong job 

matches, and the appropriate intensity of flexible 

services and supports provided in typical work 

settings. The private market employers and 

business representatives that we interviewed 

for this report, including Disability:IN (formerly 

U.S. Business Leadership Network, USBLN), 

Microsoft, Marriott, the Oregon Manufacturing 

Extension Partnership, and others, confirmed this 

and agreed that on-the-job training is the strong 

preference of employers. They even affirmed 

that this is the case regardless of whether an 

employee has a disability, because it is one of 

the most effective on-boarding and retention 

strategies.

Some workers may well need more services 

and supports than what is reasonable to expect 

from an employer, and in those instances, access 

to federal and state-funded employment service 

systems and integrated and flexible supported 

employment, customized employment, and 

other strategies is of significant importance. 

As was noted in the 2012 report, the supported 

employment service model in the long 

run is more cost effective than segregated 

employment.34 As discussed more fully later in 

this report, the providers that we visited with 

provided detailed accounts of the prevalence 

of individual workers’ supports fading over time 

as they became accustomed to their jobs, built 

natural supports, and began to expand and 

broaden their social networks, skills, and civic 

involvement. Such increased participation in the 

community is a stimulus to the economy.

JWOD

During the same year that Section 14(c) of FLSA 

was enacted, in 1938, the Wagner-O’Day Act was 

passed to provide employment opportunities 

for people who are blind by authorizing them 

to manufacture mops and brooms to sell to 

the federal government.35 In 1971, Congress 

amended the Act to include people with severe 

disabilities;36 the revised statute, known as the 

Javits-Wagner-O’Day Act (JWOD), governs the 

U.S. AbilityOne program.

Like the Section 14(c) program, JWOD/

AbilityOne reflects a time when disability was 

34 National Council on Disability
deemed to be a characteristic that prevented 

people from competing in the open market. 

Many JWOD providers actively participate in the 

14(c) program. Under JWOD/AbilityOne, at least 

75 percent of the direct labor hours worked to 

fulfill an AbilityOne contract must be performed 

by people who have a significant disability or who 

are blind.37

The 75 percent direct labor ratio requirement 

is in tension with recent evolutions of disability 

law and policy including: (1) the ADA and 

Olmstead, which require public entities, 

including employment service systems, to avoid 

the unnecessary segregation of people with 

disabilities, and to make services available in the 

most integrated setting 

appropriate; and (2) 

WIOA, which preferences 

work in competitive 

integrated employment 

as the desired outcome 

of VR services. For 

an individual to even 

qualify for the JWOD 

program, however, one 

must establish that 

they are not capable of “normal competitive 

employment.”38 Yet, competitive integrated 

employment has been found to be the most 

integrated setting appropriate under the ADA and 

Olmstead, as discussed more fully below.

Changes in the Legal Landscape

Title II of the ADA and Olmstead v. L.C.

In recent years, federal court cases have clarified 

and explained the application of the ADA to 

employment-related services for youth and 

adults with disabilities. The federal court in a 2012 

class action that preceded a settlement with the 

state of Oregon, Lane v. Kitzhaber (also Lane 

v. Brown/United States v. Oregon), specifically 

addressed the application of the ADA and the 

Supreme Court’s Olmstead v. L.C. decision to 

public entities’ obligation to prevent unnecessary 

segregation for people with disabilities.39 The 

court explicitly held that the ADA’s integration 

mandate extends to employment services and 

prohibits the unnecessary segregation, and 

serious risk of unnecessary segregation, of 

people with disabilities, including adults and 

youth with disabilities.40

Following this ruling, there were three 

landmark ADA settlement agreements entered 

within the span of three years that were brought 

by the Department of 

Justice or by the DOJ 

and private plaintiffs: 

United States v. Rhode 

Island and the City of 

Providence (2013); United 

States v. Rhode Island

(2014); and Lane v. Brown

(2015). Each of these 

court-ordered settlement 

agreements provided a 

roadmap for how state and local governments 

can rebalance their systems to ensure that their 

employment services are provided in the most 

integrated setting appropriate, and that people 

with disabilities are not unnecessarily segregated 

when they can and want to work in competitive 

integrated employment or placed at serious risk 

of such segregation. In the process, Oregon 

and Rhode Island agreed to take concrete 

steps to move away from excessive reliance on 

segregated employment settings, including those 

that paid 14(c) subminimum wages, towards 

competitive integrated employment.

The court explicitly held that 

the ADA’s integration mandate 

extends to employment services 

and prohibits the unnecessary 

segregation, and serious risk of 

unnecessary segregation, of people 

with disabilities

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 35
Under these settlement agreements, both 

states agreed to no longer purchase, or fund 

sheltered workshop placements for transition-age 

youth and other new entrants, thus closing the 

front door to sheltered workshops and ending the 

school-to-sheltered workshop pipeline. They also 

increased infrastructure, enhanced TA resources, 

strengthened career development planning 

processes, and committed to overhauling youth 

transition programs. In both states, employment 

services are now required to be individually 

planned and based on person-centered planning 

principles and evidence-based practices. 

Combined, Oregon and Rhode Island have 

committed to providing approximately 11,565 

people with the services and supports that they 

need to leave segregated employment and 

transition to competitive integrated employment 

within 10 years (8,115 in Oregon over 7 years, 

and 3,450 in Rhode Island over 10 years).

WIOA

In 2014, Congress enacted WIOA, the first 

reauthorization of the VR and workforce 

development systems in almost twenty years. 

WIOA embodies Congress’ intention that the VR 

and public workforce systems be designed and 

funded to assist youth and adults with even the 

most significant disabilities to obtain competitive 

integrated employment and to move away from 

segregated subminimum wage employment.

WIOA expanded both the scope and nature 

of employment-related transition services and 

adult employment services, further defined the 

population of people who are eligible to receive 

them and imposed important new limitations on 

the payment of sub-minimum wages. In many 

ways, WIOA was designed to limit the negative 

effects of other outdated federal laws, including 

Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act. 

In addition, WIOA requires information, referral, 

and peer-to-peer mentoring and support to 

enable people with disabilities to transition to 

competitive integrated employment.

While these developments have been the 

impetus for significant changes to publicly financed 

employment service systems across the country, 

the impact of such new requirements and the legal, 

regulatory, and policy shift toward integration—

including toward “competitive integrated 

employment,” as defined by WIOA—has yet to 

be fully realized. Nevertheless, how employment 

outcomes are defined lies with singularity at the 

heart of efforts to modernize employment systems 

and has significant ramifications for the future of 

disability employment.

Still, it appears that before these significant 

changes to the legal landscape have been fully 

implemented, including WIOA and its new 

definition of competitive integrated employment, 

some have already called for its rescission. 

The U.S. Department of Education (ED) has 

signaled an intent to issue a Notice of Proposed 

Rulemaking in September 2018 pertaining to 

the definitions in WIOA, including the definition 

of “competitive integrated employment.” Given 

that it is of significant public importance to 

understand what might be animating the views 

of disability stakeholders across the United 

States, we interviewed a broad range of people 

across the states and moderated stakeholder 

discussions, to analyze this issue and to collect 

and report such feedback.

WIOA: Definition of Competitive 

Integrated Employment

WIOA’s revisions to the Rehabilitation Act of 

1973 have quite simply clarified the definition of 

36 National Council on Disability
“competitive integrated employment.” For more 

than 15 years prior to WIOA, since January 22, 

2001, the Rehabilitation Services Administration 

has defined “employment outcome” to exclude 

work in sheltered workshops and other 

segregated settings. For a long time, VR services 

have been required to lead to “competitive 

employment . . . in the integrated labor market, 

supported employment, or any other type of 

employment in an integrated setting, including 

self-employment, telecommuting, or business 

ownership, that is consistent with an individual’s 

strengths, resources, priorities, concerns, abilities, 

capabilities, interests, and informed choice.”41

WIOA introduces a new definition, 

“competitive integrated 

employment,” that 

merely consolidates and 

revises the Rehabilitation 

Act’s previous use 

of the terms “gainful 

employment,” 

“competitive 

employment,” and 

“integrated setting.” 

The new definition of 

competitive integrated employment also adds 

“opportunities for advancement” as a required 

criterion, one relevant to whether a job is typical 

of the jobs afforded to nondisabled people in the 

marketplace.

Under WIOA, competitive integrated 

employment includes employment:

1. at minimum wage (and not less than the 

customary rate paid to employees without 

disabilities performing similar work) 

and eligibility for the same benefits as 

nondisabled employees;

2. in integrated settings where people interact 

with people without disabilities to the same 

extent as others in comparable positions; 

and

3. that provides opportunities for advancement 

similar to nondisabled people in similar 

positions.42

Importantly, group-supported employment or 

enclave employment cannot meet the definition 

of competitive integrated employment for the 

purpose of the VR program.

The WIOA definition of competitive integrated 

employment is consistent with what has been 

recognized under the Americans with Disabilities 

Act and the Supreme 

Court’s Olmstead 

v. L.C. decision to be 

“the most integrated 

setting appropriate” 

for people with 

disabilities to receive 

employment services 

and interact to the 

fullest extent possible 

with nondisabled 

coworkers, customers, and peers. In fact, such a 

definition is the very measure by which Oregon 

and Rhode Island will count success over the 

next decade under the two statewide ADA and 

Olmstead Consent Decrees. Moreover, it is 

the benchmark by which the VR systems have 

counted success for almost 20 years. In addition, 

providers in Vermont, Maine, and Washington—

states that were early adopters of supported 

employment and moved away from significant 

investments in sheltered workshops—confirmed 

that competitive integrated employment was 

the benchmark by which systems change in 

For more than 15 years prior to 

WIOA, since January 22, 2001, 

the Rehabilitation Services 

Administration has defined 

“employment outcome” to exclude 

work in sheltered workshops and 

other segregated settings

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 37
those states took place, and was measured, 

years ago. Such providers questioned whether 

transformation could take place effectively 

without fidelity to this common metric, including 

the features of what is “typical” of jobs in the 

mainstream economy. However, what counts 

as typical has, indeed, been the subject of 

considerable discussion.

WIOA: Statutory and Regulatory 

Language

Under WIOA, competitive integrated employment 

is work in an “integrated setting.”43 For a VR 

placement to be counted as an employment 

outcome in competitive integrated employment, 

it must be made in an integrated setting or a 

place: (1) typically found in the community; 

(2) where the employee with a disability interacts 

with other employees within the particular work 

unit, the entire work site, and, as appropriate to 

the work being performed, other nondisabled 

people (such as customers, vendors, etc.) to 

the same extent as nondisabled employees 

in comparable positions would interact with 

such people.44 Moreover, to be integrated, 

interactions with supervisory personnel or direct 

service providers cannot substitute for required 

interaction with nondisabled peers, coworkers, 

and customers.45

Since the Department of Education’s 

2005 Rehabilitation Services Administration 

(RSA) Technical Assistance Circular 06-01, VR 

counselors have been encouraged to look at 

“factors” as to whether a placement is in an 

integrated setting and, therefore, counts as an 

employment outcome. RSA has long considered 

several factors that “generally would result in a 

business being considered not typically found in 

the community,” including:

1. whether the positions are funded through 

Javits-Wagner-O’Day (JWOD) Act contracts 

or State purchase programs;

2. whether the positions pay subminimum 

wages under the Fair Labor Standards 

Act; and

3. whether the workplace imposes a mandated 

direct labor–hour ratio of people with 

disabilities.46

Since 2005, it has been the responsibility of 

VR counselors to take these factors into account 

when determining if a position in a particular 

work location is an “integrated setting” within 

the meaning of the statute.47 This means that 

whether something is deemed integrated 

is principally a determination made by a VR 

counselor as applied to the particular facts and in 

light of these factors. Moreover, VR counselors 

may take JWOD funding into account—but only 

as one of many factors that generally would 

result in a business being considered not typically 

found in the community.

Current Policy Discussion

Even though the standards by which the VR 

system identifies what is “integrated” and 

“segregated” have been in place for the better 

part of 20 years, some have commented that 

the regulations implementing WIOA represent a 

change in position for RSA, one perceived to have 

adverse consequences for 14(c) and/or AbilityOne 

providers. Such entities fear losing VR funding 

for clients that were formerly placed in programs 

that exist for the primary purpose of employing 

people with disabilities.

In particular, these providers view both the 

preamble to Part IV of the WIOA regulations 

38 National Council on Disability
pertaining to State Vocational Rehabilitation 

Services and an RSA FAQ explaining the 

regulations48 to contain language that erroneously 

casts a bright line to disqualify jobs intended for 

people with disabilities. WIOA’s Preamble states:

The criterion does not exclude from 

competitive integrated employment any 

innovative or unique business models 

that otherwise satisfy the definitions 

criteria. Instead, the Secretary interprets 

the criterion to be more narrowly focused 

on the purpose for which the business is 

formed. . . . [B]usinesses established by 

community rehabilitation programs or any 

other entity for the primary purpose of 

employing individuals with disabilities do 

not satisfy this criterion, and, therefore, 

are not considered integrated settings, 

because these settings are not within the 

competitive labor market. . . . The factors 

that generally would result in a business 

being considered “not typically found in 

the community” include (1) the funding of 

positions through Javits-Wagner-O’Day Act 

(JWOD) contracts; (2) allowances under 

the FLSA for compensatory subminimum 

wages; and (3) compliance with a mandated 

direct labor–hour ratio of persons with 

disabilities. It is the responsibility of the 

DSU [Designated State Unit] to take these 

factors into account when determining if a 

position in a particular work location is an 

integrated setting.49

It seems that those that have voiced 

concerns with the WIOA regulations because 

of this Preamble may have overlooked that the 

regulations, themselves, offer no such bright 

line, and call for a VR counselor to weigh several 

factors as applied to the specific circumstances 

of each employment setting. In short, the 

regulations expressly call for a balancing test.

In applying this test, the VR counselor will 

make an individualized, case-by-case assessment 

into the very nature of the program and work 

setting in question, to determine whether it 

is integrated. In this analysis, a VR counselor 

may take whether a particular work placement 

is JWOD-funded into account generally as one 

of several factors in his or her decision about 

whether it is integrated, in addition to: (1) the 

nature of the specific work unit, (2) the entire 

work site, (3) the disbursement of people with 

and without disabilities throughout, (4) the nature 

of the work being performed, and (5) the work 

site’s relationship to the community at large.

Moreover, the Secretary’s interpretation of 

“integration” to exclude businesses established 

for the primary purpose of employing people 

with disabilities seems to be neither a new 

interpretation, nor something that detracts from 

a VR counselor’s responsibility to scrutinize the 

particular circumstances of each employment 

setting before deciding whether it is integrated.

Indeed, as far back as 1997, in the comments 

to the Final Regulations to the Workforce 

Investment Act (WIOA’s predecessor statute), 

the RSA stated, “The Secretary, like many of 

the commenters, also believes that settings 

that are established specifically for the purpose 

of employing individuals with disabilities 

(e.g., sheltered workshops) do not constitute 

integrated settings since there are no comparable 

settings for non-disabled individuals.”50 Likewise, 

the comments to the Final Regulations to the 

Workforce Investment Act in 2001, the year 

that VR decided that extended employment 

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 39
(or sheltered workshops) could not count as a 

VR outcome, stated, “The chief purpose of the 

regulations is to ensure that individuals with 

disabilities participating in the VR program are 

able to pursue the same type of employment 

opportunities that are available to the general 

public. Extended employment jobs . . . are 

primarily reserved for those with disabilities.”51

Prevalent in WIOA legislative history is 

concern for the typical features of employment 

and their comparability to the employment 

experiences of nondisabled peers. While 

discerning what is a comparable experience is, 

as noted by the WIOA regulations, best kept to 

case-by-case analysis, 

the view of the agency 

historically appears 

to have been that 

settings like sheltered 

workshops that are 

physically separate from 

mainstream employment, 

and pay different wages, 

while employing only 

people with disabilities, 

except for paid staff, are not comparable or 

integrated. But knowing whether an employer 

is physically separate, or pays different wages, 

or employs only other people with disabilities, is 

certainly still the province of VR counselors as 

discussed by the WIOA regulations.

Research over the past few decades has 

yielded support for the fact that employees 

placed in jobs that do not carry typical features 

(i.e., jobs that lack employer-paid wages and 

benefits and other features comparable to 

those enjoyed by nondisabled workers) are 

actually shown to suppress wages, benefits, and 

opportunities for advancement in the long-term 

regardless of actual proximity in the community; 

while employment with more typical features is 

established to produce greater gains in wages, 

benefits, and advancement in the long term.52

The national employment experts that we 

interviewed noted that it has long been the 

rule that VR funding would not be used to fund 

sheltered workshop placements as outcomes. 

Nevertheless, they speculated that 14(c) 

and/or AbilityOne employment providers may 

be concerned about service-based contracts 

that were formerly regarded as integrated that 

they fear are now categorically excluded from 

VR funding because of the perception, under the 

WIOA Preamble, that 

they are not typical.

Even if a job on 

a service contract is 

one where workers 

with disabilities are 

widely dispersed in a 

typical employment 

setting earning wages 

well above minimum 

wage, there remains 

the obligation on the part of the VR counselor 

to establish that such is the case. This is not a 

new change in law; no experts found fault with 

the regulations’ use of factors to determine if 

something is typical in establishing whether a job 

is integrated.

Moreover, there appear to be several reasons 

why taking JWOD funding into account as 

one of several factors appears appropriate. 

As mentioned, to even qualify for the JWOD 

program, one must establish that they are not

capable of “normal competitive employment.”53

Thus, it would be difficult to establish that 

a JWOD work site is competitive integrated 

[T]o even qualify for the JWOD 

program, one must establish that 

they are not capable of “normal 

competitive employment.” Thus, it

would be difficult to establish that 

a JWOD work site is competitive 

integrated employment

40 National Council on Disability
employment under those circumstances, 

and there may be a fair presumption that one 

may not be until further investigation reflects 

otherwise.

WIOA’s definitions of competitive integrated 

employment and integrated setting create a 

general presumption that 14(c) and JWOD-funded 

employment cannot count as a VR outcome. This 

does not mean, however, that such placements 

can never be counted.

Stakeholder Feedback on the Changing 

Legal Landscape and Definition of 

Competitive Integrated Employment

We interviewed or contacted numerous people 

with disabilities, 14(c) certificate-holders, parents, 

families, self-advocates, national SMEs, and other 

providers across 26 states (including in-person 

interviews in 6 states) during the summer of 

2018. The portion of these interviews recounted 

here focus upon the changing landscape of law 

and policy, including the ADA and WIOA, and 

WIOA’s definition of competitive integrated 

employment. Included in these discussions, were 

five AbilityOne providers across three states who 

are or were also 14(c) certificate-holders.

For the most part, stakeholders recognized 

the apparent tension between Section 14(c), 

and JWOD’s direct labor ratio requirement of 

75 percent, with the ADA’s integration mandate, 

the Olmstead v. L.C. decision, and various 

states’ efforts to rebalance employment service 

systems to include integrated alternatives. Many 

of the people interviewed were in states that 

are considered leaders in transforming services 

away from segregated employment settings. 

Some vocalized concern that insofar as Section 

14(c) and JWOD continue to exist, the pace of 

change at the state level will be slowed because 

of the significant financial incentives attached to 

AbilityOne’s $3 billion per year of federal setaside contracts coupled with its 75 percent direct 

labor ratio requirement. They feared that financial 

incentives existed that would make AbilityOne 

providers obdurate to proposed changes in the 

direction of integrated services.

However, most AbilityOne providers lamented 

that the federal government’s competing 

requirements put them in a difficult position 

where their contracts require proof that the 

majority of people performing labor across their 

business are people with severe disabilities or 

blindness, on the one hand, while knowing that 

this increases the likelihood that they are not 

offering services in the most integrated setting 

appropriate and perhaps slowing their states’ 

efforts at transformation away from segregated 

service models, on the other hand. However, 

with few exceptions, almost all of these providers 

vocalized a concern that with the shifting of rules 

and expectations, they should be supported to 

ensure that people with disabilities on AbilityOne 

contracts do not lose good paying jobs during 

the transition. Multiple providers also openly 

worried that if they would call for the reform of 

the AbilityOne program, that they might lose their 

AbilityOne contracts and accompanying revenue, 

something they viewed as untenable.

In fact, one provider, who is perceived to 

be a leader in supported employment in her 

state, was very forthright about her decision to 

maintain several lucrative AbilityOne contracts, 

at the precise time that she is leading efforts to 

expand placement of people with disabilities in 

competitive integrated employment and providing 

technical expertise to other providers about 

reducing their reliance on 14(c) employment and 

closing their sheltered workshops. She said 

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 41
that she was successful in closing three 

sheltered workshops and stopping the payment 

of subminimum wages, by acquiring additional 

infrastructure support through her AbilityOne 

contracts. She stated that there is currently not 

enough financial support in the Medicaid rate 

structure alone for providers to bridge the gap as 

they convert from a segregated to an integrated 

service model, and that diversification of funding 

sources for providers engaged in transformation 

efforts is essential. She acknowledged, however, 

that her AbilityOne contracts do not correspond 

with an integrated service model and as 

constituted should not be counted as competitive 

integrated employment. Nevertheless, she 

stated that she relies upon the financial revenues 

created by them to plan, administer, and fund 

other highly individualized supported employment 

and customized employment strategies provided 

in competitive integrated employment settings.

She and other providers noted that those 

AbilityOne providers who are committed to 

providing supported employment services 

often must take the added step of separating 

their JWOD-funded contracts into separately 

incorporated businesses in order to maintain the 

ratio requirement, while not compromising other 

integrated supported employment services. The 

providers discussed that AbilityOne providers 

are not often supported employment providers 

and that, given the structural requirements of 

JWOD, being both may be the exception to the 

rule. It was further noted that having multiple 

business operations is not an ideal solution, 

as providing both kinds of services is likely 

to divide a provider’s attention, staffing, and 

resources and may, in fact, risk slowing the pace 

of transformation even more. Providers with the 

intention of modernizing employment services to 

include supported employment lamented having 

to divine infrastructure support from a funding 

source that, by its very design, was likely to 

proliferate segregated employment settings.

Others expressed the strong desire for 

JWOD’s requirements to be harmonized with 

other federal laws to incentivize and fund 

competitive integrated employment outcomes 

outright. In the view of many stakeholders, 

not just providers, the reform of the AbilityOne 

program to a more integrated service model 

would correspondingly enhance transformation 

away from 14(c) nationwide and ensure that 

support for individualized supported employment 

services is streamlined, if not accelerated, by 

additional resources.

In contrast, other providers took issue 

with what they perceived to be some VR 

agencies’ incorrect interpretation of WIOA: 

that all JWOD-funded contracts are per se

segregated and therefore do not meet the 

definition of competitive integrated employment. 

Many of these providers expressed concern 

that AbilityOne jobs were being “all lumped 

together” because the VR agency in their state 

viewed them as categorically not in “typical 

settings,” when, in their view, many servicebased contracts are in places of mainstream 

employment where workers with disabilities are 

included and incorporated into typical businesses.

For instance, a provider conveyed the 

story of a blind employee who was working in 

management at the organization and sought 

additional support from VR to continue to 

perform his office job in a work unit where 

there is significant interaction between people 

without disabilities. In the provider’s view, 

the person was denied access to VR services 

before the VR counselor even examined his 

42 National Council on Disability
particular job because the employer was a 

known AbilityOne provider with facility-based 

manufacturing contracts. Yet the employee was 

not performing work on those contracts. The 

provider acknowledged, however, that perhaps 

what made this job typical also included that the 

employer did not maintain two roles, employer 

and service provider, in its relationship to 

this employee.

More than most any other issue explored 

in discussions about the changing landscape 

of law and policy interpretation, there was 

accord as between providers, people with 

disabilities, families, private market employers 

and others that current questions about federal 

requirements are magnified by the lack of role 

clarity and conflicts of interest inherent in an 

employer also serving as a person’s primary 

point of contact for all services and sometimes 

even for residential support and health care. For 

example, discussions about what is a typical, 

and therefore, integrated job would become 

exceedingly clearer, were these roles formally 

separated.

Numerous other stakeholders voiced 

concerns about providers that were in the 

process of “privatizing” their business models, 

disassociating with joint leadership and 

funding from the County Boards, and recruiting 

nondisabled community members to work 

several hours per week in the shop, so that the 

facility would be counted as “integrated,” even 

though the employer and service provider role 

was still assumed by the same entity.

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 43
PB44 National Council on Disability National Council on Disability
Chapter 4: Characteristics of Profit-Making 

Businesses in the 14(c) Program

T

he Department of Labor (DOL)’s Wage and 

Hour Division classifies 14(c) certificates 

according to four main categories: the 

School Work Experience Program (SWEP) List; 

the Business Establishment List (BEL); the 

Patient Worker List (PWL); and the Community 

Rehabilitation Program (CRP) List.

School Work Experience Program

As of July 1, 2018, WHD issued SWEP 

certificates licensing 31 school districts, 

schools, or school programs to pay subminimum 

wages to approximately 2,000 students with 

disabilities.54 SWEP certificates must be renewed 

annually. Students in SWEP programs often 

perform piece-rate work on contracts for private 

companies during the school day in exchange 

for subminimum wages. During the prior year, 

as of July 1, 2017, there were approximately 

105 SWEPs nationwide, and between 

approximately 3,000 and 7,000 student workers 

with disabilities paid subminimum wages. While 

this represents a marked decline, it is somewhat 

surprising that the program continues to exist 

at all, given the requirements of federal law, 

including the IDEA, WIOA, ADA, Olmstead 

v. L.C., and the 2013 case, United States v. 

Rhode Island and City of Providence (finding a 

SWEP program contributed to the state and city’s 

violation of the ADA and Olmstead).

Business Establishment List

The Business Establishment List (BEL) 

represents 14(c) certificates that are issued 

directly to mainstream private employers, 

allowing such businesses to pay employees 

with disabilities less than minimum wage. BEL 

certificates must be renewed annually with 

WHD. Like the 14(c) certificate program as a 

whole, the continued availability of the BEL is 

perplexing nearly 30 years after the enactment 

of the ADA. As stated earlier, over the past 

three decades, employers have been required 

to provide reasonable accommodations to 

employees based on the understanding that it is 

the work environment that must be adjusted—

not employees’ wages—to create equality of 

opportunity for qualified workers. Yet, the BEL, a 

creation of the 1938 FLSA, calls for exactly the 

reverse. Oftentimes, through the BEL program, 

Most SWEP Certificates Nationally

The Sonoma County Office of Education in 

Sonoma, California, currently holds the most 

SWEP certificates nationally, as it is licensed 

to pay approximately 1,740 youth with 

disabilities subminimum wages.

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 45
people with disabilities are performing the same 

job, for the same employer, in the same place 

as nondisabled peers, yet making dramatically 

lower wages.

Acceptance of the ADA and its requirements 

may explain, in part, why the number of business 

certificates has decreased substantially over 

the past decade, falling from 284 businesses in 

FY 2008 to 46 in FY 2017 as shown in Table 5. Yet 

the businesses that remain on the list continue 

to receive the financial benefit of reduced labor 

costs for the approximately 133 workers who 

participate in the program.55 Moreover, WHD 

could not confirm whether the current list has 

been systematically reviewed for appropriate time 

studies or by the Equal Employment Opportunity 

Commission (EEOC) for whether they provide 

reasonable accommodations. And like all four of 

the 14(c) lists, WHD could not identify or report 

its enforcement efforts by list, and so the public 

currently has no way of knowing whether the 

WHD has conducted oversight over the private 

businesses participating in this program.

We conducted a telephone survey to all of 

the approximately 50 current BEL certificateholders across 18 states, and a paper review 

of the 14(c) applications of the top 10 business 

certificate-holders, based on the total number 

of workers with disabilities, to understand the 

current state of the program.57 These businesses 

included a commercial landscaping company, 

a building and construction company, a temp 

agency, a grocery store, a thrift shop, a steel 

fabricator, and commercial restaurant and hotel 

chains like Chili’s Restaurant, Quality Inn, and 

Super 8 Motel. Several of the respondents to the 

telephone survey noted that they were unaware 

of how their business began its participation in 

Table 5: Section 14(c) Business Establishment Certificate Applications Per Year

Fiscal Year Business Applications 

Received

Business Applications 

Received – Renewal

Business 

Certificates Issued

FY 2008 286 232 284

FY 2009 267 224 265

FY 2010 227 196 223

FY 2011 202 172 198

FY 2012 188 162 187

FY 2013 193 164 185

FY 2014 155 132 145

FY 2015 115 101 106

FY 2016 84 74 78

FY 2017 57 45 46

FY 2018 Q2 27 23 10

Total 1,801 1,525 1,727

Source: WHD April 1, 2018.56

46 National Council on Disability
this program or why it had. Some employees 

with disabilities, nevertheless, had worked 

at the business for quite some time earning 

subminimum wages. Some respondents noted 

their fear that without paying subminimum 

wages they did not think that the business could 

hire the person. Nevertheless, the businesses 

seemed to rely on the employees’ work and saw 

their role in the business as vital.

For example, a Quality Inn and Suites in 

South Dakota has two employees working on its 

active 14(c) certificate, including one individual 

who has been employed as a housekeeper at 

subminimum wages for 17 of the 25 years that 

the hotel has had its certificate. The housekeeper 

is paid $4.54 per room for “piece work by the 

room.” The General Manager (GM) conducts 

the time studies, or in her absence, the Head 

Housekeeper, and according to the GM they 

have never received TA from the Department of 

Labor (DOL) as to how to do the time studies.58

Indeed, WHD has conducted a mere 16 outreach 

events about the 14(c) program in each of the 

last two years.59 Similar work for commercial 

hotels is performed in other states through the 

BEL. For instance, data provided by the WHD 

reflect that three workers with autism perform 

housecleaning for $4.36 per room or an average 

of $4.19 per hour for a Super 8 Motel in Illinois 

that holds a 14(c) certificate when, by contrast, 

prevailing wages for that job are listed at $9.02 

per hour.

One business on the BEL, Riverview 

Productions in Wellston, Ohio, reported paying 

employees with disabilities wages as low as 25 

cents and 30 cents per hour to perform assembly 

and disassembly work when the prevailing wage 

is $8.15 per hour for the same work performed by 

nondisabled workers.60 The business specifically 

answered “no” on the 14(c) certificate application 

in response to a question about its compliance 

with core WIOA requirements, including whether 

it had verified that counseling, information, and 

referral had been provided to its 14(c) employees 

about competitive integrated employment and 

other training opportunities.61

Patient Worker List

The Patient Worker List (PWL) is comprised of 

14(c) certificates issued to private nonprofit, 

for-profit, and public, including state and local, 

institutional health care facilities.62 There are 

a total of approximately 4,961 workers on the 

PWL and 82 current certificate-holders in 29 

states.63 Patient worker certificates must be 

renewed every two years. PWL certificates allow 

such institutions to pay people with disabilities 

less than minimum wage, typically in sheltered 

workshops that are within the same facility 

or campus, where people perform tasks like 

recycling, shredding, kitchen, laundry, janitorial, 

and landscaping tasks for the institution. 

Ostensibly the purpose of patient worker 

programs is to train patients for employment. In 

reality, however, such programs serve as a means 

for workers to perform services at reduced 

labor costs for the very entity that controls their 

residential placement. In this regard, the entity 

plays three roles as it concerns the patient 

worker: employer, employment service provider, 

and residential treatment provider. As a result 

of these overlapping and often conflicting roles, 

patient workers are frequently assigned manual 

tasks as part of their rehabilitation, employment 

training, and residential placement.

Over the past ten years, the number 

of PWL certificates issued each year has 

declined significantly, by more than half, from 

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 47
91 certificates issued in FY 2008 to 39 issued in 

FY 2017 as shown in Table 6. While there have 

been fewer than 100 certificates issued each 

year for at least a decade, the number of people 

paid subminimum wages at each institution 

remains quite high, and as described below, 

their wages are exceedingly low. For example, 

large developmental training centers, like the 

J. Iverson Riddle Developmental Training 

Center in North Carolina and the Porterville 

Developmental Center in California, each have 

over 250 workers with disabilities performing 

labor in exchange for subminimum wages.

We conducted a telephone survey of the 

top 10 PWL certificate-holders, based on 

the number of 14(c) workers, and reviewed 

14(c) certificate applications for those 

same providers.65 In June 2018, there were 

approximately 1,977 workers currently employed 

by the top 10 PWL certificate-holders, or 40 

percent of all patient workers paid subminimum 

wages in the United States.66

One of the employees who participated in 

the survey from Conway Human Development 

Center in Arkansas stated that she assumed 

that the employees with disabilities participating 

in Conway’s workshop were earning minimum 

wages, but, nevertheless, maintained that 

without a certificate such employees were 

not capable of working because in her view 

“their disabilities hinder higher pay.” Data from 

Conway’s 14(c) certificate application reveals that 

its reported 182 workers perform such tasks as 

“packaging rocks,” and “inserting card[s]” and 

“shredding paper” for far below minimum wage: 

an average wage of 90 cents per hour, with some 

workers being paid as little as 13 cents per hour.67

In fact, as shown in Table 7, the wages across the 

Table 6: Section 14(c) Patient Worker Certificate Applications Per Year

Fiscal Year Patient Worker 

Applications Received

Patient Worker Applications 

Received – Renewal

Patient Worker 

Certificates Issued

FY 2008 91 81 91

FY 2009 88 81 88

FY 2010 83 77 82

FY 2011 79 73 79

FY 2012 82 73 79

FY 2013 74 68 73

FY 2014 67 58 60

FY 2015 58 51 57

FY 2016 52 47 51

FY 2017 43 40 39

FY 2018 Q2 22 20 14

Total 739 669 713

Source: WHD, 2018.64

48 National Council on Disability
top 10 PWL certificate-holders were unusually 

low, even for 14(c) programs.

In addition to reporting low wages, the 

14(c) certificate applications reviewed showed 

signs that submitted records were incomplete, 

inaccurate, or, even in some cases, they 

appeared in contravention of the regulations and 

requirements governing the program.

For example, the 14(c) certificate application 

for the Utah State Developmental Center 

revealed that more than 41 people received the 

same wage of 24 cents per hour to sort certain 

items; 21 people made 43 cents per hour on 

shredding; and at least 33 people made 38 cents 

per hour on wood crafts. Even more concerning, 

15 people made between 7 cents and 8 cents 

per hour on an activity called “pinatas;” and 26 

other people made 34 cents per hour on that 

same activity.69 From these records, it appeared 

that the wages given to various groups were 

calculated irrespective of the workers’ individual 

productivity, as entire groups of workers were 

assigned the same exceedingly low wages 

apparently based more on their task than on their 

productivity. A telephone survey respondent 

at Utah State Developmental Center said that 

while they have 7 sheltered workshops with 

170 subminimum wage workers, they do have 

a few workers in supported employment and 

group enclave employment. Nevertheless, the 

respondent, advancing a common mythology 

about the impact of work on benefits, noted that 

“if folks were paid minimum wage, they would 

make too much money and lose their services 

and health care. It would also cost the state a 

lot more.”

Beverly Farm Developmental Training Center 

in Godfrey, Illinois, filled out its 14(c) certificate 

application by listing the “average paycheck” for 

each worker performing assembly, janitorial, and 

laundry work rather than the results of actual 

time studies that set wages per hour.70 As a 

Table 7: Top Ten PWL Certificate-Holders Reported Wages

PWL

Top 10 Program State

Lowest 

Wage 

Reported

Highest 

Wage 

Reported

Average Wage 

of Reported 

Participants

Booneville Human Development Center AR 0.13 5.22 0

Conway Human Development Center AR 1.67 1.88 1

J Iverson Riddle 

Development Center

NC 0.07 7.25 1

Lambs Farm IL 0.11 6.92 2

Murdoch Development Center NC 1.89 7.86 5

Tacachale 

Industries

FL 0.03 7.98 1

Utah State 

Development Center

UT 0.02 7.23 0

Average 0.56 6.33 2.06

Data Source: WHD, 2018.68

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 49
result, we could not discern how many hours per 

week workers are performing such activities, and 

how their wages were calculated.

Likewise, at Tacachale Industries in 

Gainesville, Florida, 140 workers were listed as all 

making either $1.00 per hour or $2.00 per hour, 

with the occasional worker making in the $3.00 

range, for performing benchwork.71 This too raises 

alarm that time studies are not being conducted 

correctly.

Despite these findings, our research also 

indicates that the patient worker program—like 

other parts of the 14(c) program—is in a state 

of flux, as some entities have relinquished 

their patient worker 14(c) certificates in accord 

with a push across the country for supported 

employment services provided in typical 

work settings. For example, the Polk Center 

in Northwestern Pennsylvania, a state-run 

Intermediate Care Facility for people with 

I/DD, did not renew its certificate in July 2018.72

The reason given by a respondent to the phone 

survey was because the state is “switching to 

an Employment First model,” because patients 

can work in the community at higher wages, and 

she confirmed that former workshop participants 

are now engaged in different kinds of supported 

employment in the community.

Community Rehabilitation 

Program List

The Community Rehabilitation Program 

(CRP) List represents the vast majority of 

subminimum wage employers and employees 

in the 14(c) program and is comprised of 

certificates issued to sheltered workshops that 

employ mostly only people with disabilities 

except for paid support staff. As of July 1, 

2018, the WHD reported on its website a total 

of approximately 124,066 workers on the CRP 

list and 1,769 certificate-holders in 49 states.73

However, during the same month, the DOL 

stated in a letter addressed to a member of 

Congress that “certificate holders employed 

approximately 321,131 workers with disabilities 

in FY 2017.”74 CRP certificates must be renewed 

every two years.

We examined the top 50 CRPs, by the 

number of subminimum wage workers, to 

better understand the characteristics of the 

largest such operations. As with patient workers, 

in examining relevant data, we found that a 

disproportionately large number of workers 

are employed by a small number of CRPs. For 

example, 20 CRP certificate-holders employ 

approximately 14,422 workers.75 Put differently, 

while they make up only 1.1 percent of all 

certificate-holders, these 20 entities employ 

approximately 11 percent of all 14(c) employees. 

The top 50 certificate-holders, or just 2.8 percent 

of all certificate-holders, employ approximately 

25,574 of the 14(c) employees, or 19 percent of 

all 14(c) employees.76

This begs us to look at the characteristics of 

these employers and work settings, and to ask 

why such entities, given their large number of 

subminimum wage employees, appear to be 

insulated from changes that are afoot, including 

shifts away from subminimum wage employment 

and toward more modernized services.

The largest certificate-holders are 

concentrated geographically in a small number 

of states. Nine states have the highest number 

of 14(c) certificate-holders and subminimum 

wage employees: California, Ohio, Illinois, 

Pennsylvania, New York, Wisconsin, Missouri, 

Minnesota, and Texas. The number of workers 

employed at subminimum wages in these 

50 National Council on Disability
states is disproportionate to the population size. 

These nine states make up 44 percent of the 

U.S. population, but employ 56 percent of the 

people on 14(c) certificates.77 For instance, Ohio 

comprises 5 percent of the country’s population, 

but makes up 9 percent of the country’s 

subminimum wage employees.78 Likewise, 

Illinois contains 4 percent of the country’s 

population, but comprises 7.5 percent of the 

country’s subminimum wage employees.79

To unlock the reason for such high 

concentrations of certificates in a few states, we 

asked WHD for information about the number 

of these top CRP employers that engage in the 

AbilityOne or state-use programs—where people 

with disabilities manufacture goods or provide 

services to states on set-aside contracts.80

WHD reported that it does not collect such 

information from employers. However, NCD 

independently collected and reviewed publicly 

available information from the AbilityOne program 

and state-use laws across all 50 states and 

found that approximately 70 percent of the top 

20 CRP certificate-holders, based on number 

of subminimum wage workers, are AbilityOne 

employers and participate in state-use set-aside 

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 51
contracts.81 And 48 percent of all AbilityOne 

employers have 14(c) certificates.82

If we expand the scope of our review to 

the top 50 CRPs based on the number of 

subminimum wage employees, less than a third 

(28%) of CRPs in the top 50 do not participate 

in either the AbilityOne or state-use programs.83

Within the top 50 CRPs, 54 percent are 

AbilityOne employers; 44 percent participate in 

state-use programs; and 26 percent participate in 

both the AbilityOne and state-use programs.84 As 

mentioned above, nearly 20 percent of all 14(c) 

employees in the United States are employed 

by these top 50 CRPs. The data reflects that 

across all CRPs, those entities that have fewer 

subminimum wage workers are less likely to be 

engaged in the AbilityOne program. For instance, 

just 15 percent of all CRP 14(c) certificateholders and 24 percent of all subminimum 

wage employees are AbilityOne employers or 

employees.85

As mentioned throughout this report, the 

AbilityOne program, as controlled by the 

JWOD statute, requires that 75 percent of all 

direct labor hours across all operations are 

performed by people who are blind or have 

severe disabilities.86 Many state-use programs 

mirror the JWOD requirements pertaining to 

a direct labor ratio. Twenty-eight states have 

incorporated the 75 percent direct labor ratio 

requirement; 5 other states require that people 

with disabilities comprise “more than 50% of 

employees”; whereas 14 states have no clear 

labor ratio requirement.87 The states that host 7 

of the top 10 CRPs by number of subminimum 

wage workers have 75 percent requirements: 

California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, 

Wisconsin, and Missouri.88

These same states are on the list of those 

with the highest proportion of subminimum wage 

workers and 14(c) certificates nationwide. We 

infer that manufacturing settings with mostly 

only people with disabilities are either the natural 

result of these laws or are financially sustained 

by them. As such, 14(c) employers in such places 

benefit from reduced labor costs by paying 

52 National Council on Disability
subminimum and/or 

subprevailing wages, and 

often also benefit from 

these federal and state 

set-aside contracts, while 

receiving payments from 

Medicaid, VR, state, and 

local funding sources.

Opponents of 

eliminating the use 

of 14(c) certificates 

frequently argue that 

14(c) employers would not be able to employ 

the people with disabilities that they do at 

minimum wage or above without going out of 

business. Several national experts and numerous 

employment providers that we spoke with, 

reflecting upon this assertion, stated that it is 

an acknowledgment that, even with substantial 

set-aside contracts and federal, state, and 

local funding, the workshop business model 

is largely unsustainable unless people are paid 

subminimum wages. Or, plainly stated, the 

subminimum wage is not a bug of the workshop 

model, it is its primary feature.

In the experts’ judgment, the sheltered 

workshop business model, itself, rather than the 

impact of disability on productivity, incentivizes 

low wages and correspondingly disincentivizes 

reasonable accommodations, better job 

matches, and more integrated employment 

services. In fact, some 14(c) employees are 

reportedly documented as at or near 100 

percent productivity when time-studied but, 

nevertheless, remain in 14(c) employment, and a 

great many other employees reportedly perform 

jobs without ever being individually assessed 

for accommodations, thus suppressing their 

resulting wages. WHD has not reported targeted 

enforcement efforts to 

ensure that employees 

in the 14(c) program 

are not misclassified. 

Moreover, as NCD noted 

in its 2018 report Has 

the Promise Been Kept?: 

Federal Enforcement of 

Disability Rights Laws, 

to date, there have been 

no systematic efforts 

to review sheltered 

workshops for compliance with the reasonable 

accommodations provisions of Title I of the 

ADA. Yet, if reasonable accommodations were 

provided during required time studies, 14(c) 

employees’ wages may see considerable overall 

improvement, calling into question an inestimable 

number of employees’ classification in the 

program. Thus, in addition to paying artificially low 

wages, 14(c) employers may also be benefitting 

financially from the absence of vigorous 

enforcement of federal laws across the program.

14(c) employers .. benefit fr

reduced labor costs by paying 

subminimum and/or subprevailing 

wages, and often also benefit from 

these federal and state set-aside 

contracts, while receiving payments 

from Medicaid, VR, state, and local 

funding sources

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 53
And why would the workshop model not work 

unless labor costs are artificially low? Rising 

wages may indeed lead to worker layoffs for 

employers who have less reliable and outdated 

business models, meaning anemic contract 

revenues for manual labor that has become 

increasingly automated, older donated equipment 

and machinery, with too significant an investment 

in overhead expense, including physical plant and 

materials investment, and too few employees 

performing jobs that match their preferences 

and strengths. In fact, this was one of several 

reasons that many providers that we visited 

closed their sheltered workshops and engaged 

in modernization 

toward supported 

employment services. 

Basic labor market 

economics controlled. 

The confluence of 

both the changing 

demand from youths 

emerging from schools 

who can and want to 

work in competitive 

integrated employment, 

and significant disruptions to the market for 

manufacturing and service contracts made it less 

possible to continue with the current business 

model and maintain fidelity to the long-term 

interests of people with disabilities who can 

and want to engage in meaningful employment. 

At least this was the case for many small- to 

medium-size businesses.

In significant contrast, however, the largest 

CRPs that profit most significantly from federal, 

state, and local set-aside contracts and other 

funding sources do not appear at serious risk 

from being unable to afford minimum wages, 

yet they continue to pay subminimum wages. In 

fact, their revenues are proportioned in almost 

diametrical opposition to their need to pay these 

subminimum wages, as reflected in Table 8. 

IRS Form 990 tax documents reveal that the 

combined total annual revenue of the top 10 

CRPs, by number of subminimum wage workers, 

is nearly $523 million.89 The top employer on this 

list, Social Vocational Services, Inc., a sheltered 

workshop in California, has annual revenue of 

nearly $105 million from recycling operations, 

and its CEO has an annual salary of over 

$1.1 million yet it continues to pay 1,790 workers 

subminimum wages.90 Likewise, Pride Industries, 

also in California, an 

AbilityOne and CRP 

employer, has annual 

revenue of over $205 

million, and its CEO’s 

annual salary is $389,860, 

but it pays 1,103 workers 

subminimum wages.91

For these, and the 

other top 50 CRPs, 

arguments about their 

continued viability absent 

subminimum wages hardly seem appropriate.

In addition to these economics, there are 

additional trends at play in the data reviewed. 

For instance, a few large disability provider 

organizations and their affiliates maintain a 

significant share of the sheltered workshops 

in the United States; 24 percent of the top 50 

CRPs by number of subminimum wage workers 

were Goodwill, Easter Seals, or Arc affiliated.93

Goodwill-, Easter Seals-, or Arc-affiliated 

sheltered workshops employ at least 17,321 

subminimum-wage workers, or 13 percent of all 

14(c) employees, and they hold 191 (11%) 14(c) 

[T]he sheltered workshop business 

model, itself, rather than the 

impact of disability on productivity, 

incentivizes low wages and 

correspondingly disincentivizes 

reasonable accommodations, better 

job matches, and more integrated 

employment services

54 National Council on Disability
certificates.94 These three organizations gain 

considerable financial revenue from the older 

workshop model. Of the top 30 Goodwill-, Easter 

Seals-, or Arc-affiliated nonprofits, as determined 

by number of workers paid subminimum wages, 

81 percent are AbilityOne providers.95 In 1971, 

a coalition of Goodwill Industries International, 

National Easter Seal Society, ACCSES, The 

Arc, United Cerebral Palsy Association, and 

International Association of Jewish Vocational 

Services spearheaded legislative efforts to 

expand the Javits-Wagner-O’Day Act to include 

set-aside contracts to serve people with 

significant disabilities.96 As original proponents 

of such set-aside contracts, many of these same 

organizations continue to have significant stakes 

in the AbilityOne program. Accordingly, these 

organizations and their affiliates collect sizable 

annual revenues. The average annual revenue for 

the top Goodwill-affiliated nonprofits is nearly 

$45 million, for Easter Seals is over $17 million, 

and for Arc is over $13 million.97

Table 8: Annual Revenue for the Top 10 CRPs

CRP Top 10 

Program

Annual 

Revenue*

Number 

of 14c 

Employees

Industry/Trade State

AbilityOne or 

State Use

Social Vocational 

Services Inc

$104,787,260 1,790 Clerical, retail, and food 

services. Recycling and

shredding

CA

SAW Inc. $5,317,688 1,600 Retail and food service

Piecework

OH X

Pride Industries $205,354,064 1,103 Janitorial and restaurant 

services. Packagin

CA X

S.T.E.P. $16,614,854 920 Assembly, recycling, reta

and food service

MI X

Ohio Valley 

Goodwill

$41,611,900 799 Janitorial and landscaping 

services. Piecewor

OH X

Arc Industries 

Inc

$10,651,160 726 Packaging, assembly, 

janitorial, and food services

OH X

NYSARC, Inc

NYC Chapter

$16,933,868 658 Janitorial and landscaping 

services. Shreddin

NY X

Monco 

Enterprises, Inc

$1,650,501 603 Piecework, janitorial, and 

dog biscuits

OH X

Associated 

Production 

Services

$3,993,629 588 Piecework, packaging. P

Pro-Act Inc. $115,981,579 483 Piecework. Clerical

janitorial, and food services

MN X

Total $522,896,503 9,270 6 8

Source: IRS 990 Form92

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 55
The high concentration of subminimum wage 

workers employed by a small number of CRPs 

has real consequences for efforts to modernize 

employment service systems for people with 

disabilities. And because they employ so many 

people, have these CRPs convinced the public 

that they are too big to fail? The data shows 

that they are not even close to failing or that 

the interests of the top 50 certificate-holders 

represent the views of the remaining 1,719 

certificate-holders. It seems medium- and 

smaller-size certificate-holders, not financially 

invested in 75 percent direct labor ratio models, 

have been vastly more open to change across 

states where the 

transformation has 

begun. 14(c) employers 

that are significantly 

invested in supplying 

goods or services 

to federal and state 

governments, or that 

played historical roles in 

enacting such programs, 

are reluctant to change 

their service models due to these deeply 

ingrained structural barriers and strong financial 

incentives.

However, federal and state set-aside contracts 

may not be the only financial incentives that are 

unduly influencing resistance to systems change, 

as private contractors, including U.S. and foreign 

corporations, continue to exert strong influence 

on the workshop model.

The Role of Private Business in 

Sustaining Subminimum Wages

In examining the structural incentives that 

sustain the sheltered workshop model, we 

would be remiss if we did not also analyze the 

role of private companies. Little analysis has 

been conducted about the contract customers 

of Section 14(c) certificate entities, which 

benefit from reduced labor costs within their 

supply chains. Many such companies may be 

altogether unaware of the terms and conditions 

of 14(c) employment and not know that 

workers performing these contracts are earning 

subminimum wages and working without up-todate equipment or accommodations.

Just as importantly, the question arises: 

Can 14(c) employers sustain supplier contracts 

with these companies while also transitioning 

towards integrated service models, or do the 

contracts themselves 

need to change for larger 

systems changes to 

occur? After conducting 

extensive interviews 

for this report, NCD 

finds that the business 

community is a 

necessary partner to 

systems change, and 

changes are necessary 

to the way businesses contract with disability 

employers in their supply chain.

In July 2018, in partnership with the 

National Disability Rights Network (NDRN), 

NCD conducted a 50-state survey to collect 

information about the companies and customers 

of sheltered workshops. The survey results 

demonstrated that there are a wide variety of 

national companies reported to purchase their 

products or services from 14(c) certificate-holders 

that pay workers with disabilities subminimum 

wages. For instance, companies like Firestone, 

Home Depot, Kohler, Kroger, Mary Kay, MAC 

Industries, Raytheon, Time Warner Cable, and 

Walmart are known to be invested in 14(c) labor.98

The survey results demonstrated 

that there are a wide variety of 

national companies reported to 

purchase their products or services 

from 14(c) certificate-holders 

that pay workers with disabilities 

subminimum wages

56 National Council on Disability
The results also demonstrate that there are 

numerous medium-sized to smaller companies, 

as well as federal, state, and local governments, 

that do business with 14(c) certificate-holders.

For a more specific exploration, we 

analyzed the subminimum wage ecosystem in 

Massachusetts, through a survey conducted by 

the Disability Law Center in Massachusetts of 

78 corporations and institutions that contracted 

with 14(c) certificate-holders in that state as 

of January 16, 2018.99 As demonstrated by the 

companies listed below, in a single sheltered 

workshop network, customers ranged from 

some of the largest companies in the country to 

universities, schools, and other institutions, and 

retail and service companies.

Companies Invested in 14(c) Labor in Massachusetts’ 

Sheltered Workshops

*3M Corporation* Advanced Flexible Composites* American Dryer Corporation 

*AmerisourceBergen* Aramark Uniform Services (subsidiary of Aramark Corporation)* 

Atlantic Union College* Atlas Box and Crating (a/k/a AGS Global Solutions)* Best Western 

Hotel* Big Y Foods, Inc.* Billerica Housing Authority* Blue Cross Blue Shield of MA* 

Boston Dermatology and Laser Center* Bristol Myers Squibb* Callaway Golf Corporation* 

CareerSource* Catalog Source Company* Cintas* Citizens-Union Bank* Commonwealth 

of Massachusetts-Division of Capital Asset Management (DCAMM)* Commonwealth of 

Massachusetts-Department of Developmental Services (DDS)* Concord Municipal Light 

Plant* Consentino Middle School, Haverhill Public Schools* Covidien/Medtronics* Crowne 

Plaza Hotel Pittsfield-Berkshires* Curriculum Associates LLC* Cushing Academy* CVS* 

Dana Hall Riding Center of Dana Hall School* Deerfield Packaging, a/k/a Mayhew Steel 

Products* Emerson Hospital* Exchange2Excel* E-Z Way Cleaners* Fallon Ambulance* 

General Dynamics* General Electric* GMI/Gregory Manufacturing* Guardair Corporation* 

Hampton Inn* Harvard University* Harvey Tool* Haverhill City Hall* Holiday Inn* Holt & 

Bugbee Co.* Hutchinson Sealing Systems* Hyde Tools* KLT Industries* Lantheus Medical 

Imaging* Lawrence General Hospital* Marine Polymer Technologies, Inc.* Marshalls* Milton 

Roy* North Adams Housing Authority* Polyfoam Corporation* Price Chopper Supermarkets* 

Ravensburger Schmid Puzzle Co., a/k/a Ravensburger Global* Smith & Wesson* Sodexo 

Food Services* Sodexo-Marriott Food Services* Southbridge-Department of Public Works* 

Stop and Shop Supermarket* Tedeschi Food Shops* The Hilsinger Company d/b/a Hiclo 

Vision* TJMaxx* TJX* U.S. Army Corps of Engineers/ U.S. Government* U.S. Army Reserves 

Center* U.S. Army Reserves Center/U.S. Government* U.S. Army Southbridge Recruiting 

Station* U.S. National Park Service* U.S. Naval Reserve Center* Unifirst Corporation* 

United Stationers Supply, Inc.* Vita Needle Company* Walgreens* Walmart* Westford 

Academy* Whole Foods* Ye Old Pepper Candy Company*

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 57
In connection with this report, we also 

interviewed Disability:IN (formerly the U.S. 

Business Leadership Network or USBLN), an 

organization dedicated to promoting inclusion 

and equality for people with disabilities in U.S. 

businesses. Disability:IN, in partnership with the 

American Association of People with Disabilities 

(AAPD), developed an annual benchmarking tool 

that offers businesses an objective score on a 

scale of zero (0) to 100, related to their disability 

inclusion policies and practices. The companies 

that participate in the Disability Equality Index 

(DEI) are committed to best practices in disability 

hiring, on-boarding, inclusion, and advancement 

within their workplaces.

It is noteworthy that for 2018, the highest 

scored DEI companies—those that attained a 

100 percent rating for their disability practices—

included several of the companies known to 

have investments in sheltered workshops during 

the same year. For instance, when the 2018 DEI 

is juxtaposed against the 2018 Disability Law 

Center of Massachusetts survey, we see that 

3M, Aramark, CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart 

are top DEI companies but are also reported 

to be customers of 14(c) certificate-holders in 

Massachusetts. Moreover, during our travels 

and research in connection with this report, we 

encountered other businesses listed among top 

DEI companies that had goods or services that 

were being procured at subminimum wages. For 

example, we saw firsthand Boeing parts being 

assembled and manufactured in two different 

certificate-holders’ facilities.

We asked Disability:IN what steps the 

business community has taken to increase 

transparency and accountability in corporate 

supply chains to raise awareness of subminimum 

wage labor in the same way companies currently 

address child labor, unsafe working conditions, 

and human trafficking. Disability:IN reported that 

in 2018, for the first time, it introduced questions 

about 14(c) labor in its DEI questionnaire, but 

those questions were not “weighted” against 

companies’ overall score. As a result, they 

received numerous inquiries from companies 

that had either never heard of the 14(c) program 

before receiving the questions or had no supplychain auditing methods in place for the issue. 

Disability:IN’s incorporation of these questions 

into the DEI began the process of raising 

businesses’ awareness of the issue. Next year, in 

the 2019 DEI, for the first time, those questions 

will be weighted and companies will be evaluated 

for overall disability inclusion based on this factor, 

among others.

Consistent with the experiences of 

Disability:IN and its administration of the DEI, 

representatives from companies that are engaged 

in cutting-edge efforts to recruit and hire people 

with disabilities often do not know whether their 

company has conducted supply-chain audits or 

written into its Supply-Chain Code of Conduct 

safeguards against subminimum wage labor. In 

addition, they may be unaware of language in 

their Master Service Agreements and standard 

contracts that do not prohibit such low wages.

For example, we interviewed the Disability 

Law Center of Massachusetts (DLC-MA) in 

connection with this report. DLC-MA staff 

reported that a SWEP certificate held by a 

vocational collaborative of five school districts, 

the in Lexington, Arlington, Burlington, Bedford, 

Belmont (LABBB) Educational Collaborative, 

was used for students to work for subminimum 

wages on contracts with Harvard University 

and Whole Foods. The DLC-MA found that an 

entire warehouse in Allston, Massachusetts, 

58 National Council on Disability
was used for students with disabilities to sort 

through discarded computers, computer salvage, 

and other recyclables like clothes, books, and 

furniture left behind by Harvard University 

students. Student workers earned wages as low 

as $2.59 per hour to do this recycling. Students 

with disabilities would insert a computer part into 

another computer to see if it worked, hundreds 

of times in repetition. Other times they sorted 

books and clothing. After it became aware of the 

requirements of WIOA, in 2018, the school district 

collaborative abandoned its SWEP certificate 

and began to transition students into supported 

employment in integrated settings, reportedly 

phasing out all subminimum wages. When 

asked by DLC-MA about why the Collaborative 

never asked Harvard to consider directly hiring 

the student workers with disabilities, the 

Collaborative staff demurred, stating that it was 

concerned that Harvard would “balk” and that 

the opportunity for any employment would be 

lost. In other words, one of the largest employers 

in Massachusetts was never asked to pay 

competitive wages on its contracts, or to directly 

on-board its workers with disabilities, and so five 

school districts carried on for years on a contract 

that paid subminimum wages.

We also interviewed companies that have 

paid careful attention to disability hiring and 

inclusion in their supply chains, but that have 

yet to directly address the issue of subminimum 

wage. For example, we met with representatives 

from Microsoft’s supported employment project 

in Seattle, a recognized model employer of 

people with disabilities. Beginning in 2013, 

Microsoft’s Real Estate and Facilities Division 

worked with its numerous vendors to identify 

jobs that needed to be filled and then worked 

to identify and hire qualified employees with 

I/DD with the assistance of local supported 

employment providers. The program has 

been successful by any number of measures, 

modeling exponential growth of supported 

employment over a short period of time within 

one company’s wide and varied supply chain. 

As a result, it has placed over 200 people with 

I/DD in competitive integrated employment over 

the past four years.100 The company trumpets 

the return on investment of taking these steps, 

including $26.69 return on each dollar invested 

in accommodations; an average turnover 

rate of 8 percent versus 45 percent for other 

employees; and the fact that 87 percent of 

customers prefer businesses to hire employees 

with disabilities.101 In many ways, Microsoft 

has become a standard setter among its peers 

by innovatively capitalizing on the employers 

within its supply chain, and their unmet 

needs, to exponentially increase its disability 

hiring efforts. It has even produced a toolkit 

for other companies to emulate the model.102

However, when asked, its representatives did 

not know whether subminimum wage labor 

was also expressly excluded from its supply 

chain or mentioned in its supply chain Code of 

Conduct. Like many companies, upon closer 

examination, the Microsoft Supply Chain Code 

of Conduct makes no specific reference to the 

exclusion of subminimum wage labor. It states in 

relevant part:

Wages and benefits paid for a standard 

working week must meet local and national 

legal standards.103

While this would seem at first glance to 

impose standards that meet federal minimum 

wages in all instances, it does not. Why? 

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 59
Because Section 14(c) of the FLSA is a “national 

legal standard” and is often also incorporated 

into state subminimum wage laws. As such, it 

is not illegal to pay subminimum wages, and, 

without clearer prohibitions in Supply Chain 

Codes of Conduct, Master Service Agreements, 

and procurement contracts, companies are likely 

unwittingly continuing to invest in such labor. 

Moreover, without specific audit processes 

to check supply chains for such investment, 

companies may be perpetuating such labor 

practices. Microsoft is committed to seeking a 

solution to these recognized gaps in its policies 

and contracts.

On the other hand, 

many companies 

in the country are 

aware that they have 

contracted with 

sheltered workshops 

for subminimum wage 

labor, may even have 

toured the workshop 

facilities and interacted 

with sheltered workshop 

leadership and staff, 

and engaged in such relationships, in part, to 

strategically lower labor costs while ostensibly 

serving the company’s interest in supporting 

people with disabilities.

In 2017, a first of its kind case was filed in 

federal court by a Plaintiff sheltered workshop 

employee seeking to hold a company 

accountable for discrimination perpetuated 

through its exclusive supplier contract with 

a sheltered workshop. The case, filed in the 

United States District Court for the Southern 

District of Ohio, Michael A. Denoewer v. 

UCO Industries Inc. and Honda of America 

Manufacturing Inc., Case No.: 2:17-cv00660-

GCS-KAJ, alleged that Honda “aided and 

abetted” discrimination by contracting with 

the sheltered workshop to pay some workers 

with disabilities subminimum wages while 

offering other workers higher wages and 

greater opportunities. In its Motion to Dismiss 

the Complaint, Honda stated that it did not 

discriminate by merely “exercising its economic 

power to ensure UCO’s labor costs were low, 

which led UCO to pay certain employees less; 

and (2) making specific 

production demands, 

which led UCO to place 

certain employees on 

certain lines to meet 

those production 

demands.”104 In addition, 

Honda stated, “there 

is absolutely nothing 

unlawful or even 

irregular about Honda 

contracting or engaging 

in the normal course 

of business with a supplier to keep labor costs 

low.”105 The brief went on to say “in a market 

economy, this is commercially reasonable.”106

From these public filings, we see that Honda, 

like many other companies, takes the position 

that it is entitled to bargain for reduced labor 

costs, it is “commercially reasonable” to do 

so—as long as the option is available within 

the market economy—even if it means paying 

people with disabilities differently because of 

their disability status.

[M]any companies in the country 

are aware that they have contracted 

with sheltered workshops for 

subminimum wage labor .. a

engaged in such relationships, in 

part, to strategically lower labor 

costs while ostensibly serving the 

company’s interest in supporting 

people with disabilities

60 National Council on Disability
Chapter 5: Observations and Findings

While it has become widely recognized 

that the 14(c) program is a historical 

anachronism in need of modernization 

and transformation, questions continue to exist 

about the efficacy, benefits, and consequences of 

various modernization strategies.

New England Tour

Rhode Island

Purpose of Visit

Rhode Island was selected because over the past 

five years, and after entering two distinct ADA and 

Olmstead court-ordered settlement agreements 

with the U.S. Department of Justice,107 the State 

has committed to rebalancing its employment 

service system, closing the front door to sheltered 

workshops, and assisting thousands of people 

with I/DD and other disabilities to move from 

subminimum wage–segregated employment to 

competitive integrated employment. The data 

demonstrates these significant changes. A survey 

conducted in 2012 and the fourth quarter of 2017 

demonstrates the change.108

Meaning, over the past six years, that Rhode 

Island has more than doubled the number of 

people working in integrated employment and 

reduced the number of people in sheltered 

workshops by 90 percent. During the time 

these people are not working, Rhode Island has 

shifted from 80 percent being in facility-based 

day services to 78 percent being in communitybased day services at least part of the time. And 

1,178 people have career development plans.109

The average wage for people in competitive 

integrated employment in Rhode Island is 

between $10.00 and $11.00 per hour.110

The state has also reduced its segregated day 

service population by almost half, dispelling any 

myth that it has phased out 14(c) employment by 

populating its facility-based day programs. In fact, it 

has improved access for more than three-quarters 

of respondents to integrated supports during 

the hours that they are not working, including 

volunteering and other forms of civic participation. 

Visiting Rhode Island has provided an important 

perspective on how providers have been supported 

to make significant changes to their employment 

services, in a relatively short period of time, and 

how they have offered support to people with 

disabilities to build and expand personal networks.

Year Population Individual 

Jobs

Sheltered 

Work

Facility-Based 

Day

Community-Based 

Day

2012 3235 383 (12%) 839 (26%) 2572 (80%)

2017 3232 834 (26%) 78 (2.5%) 1490 (47%) 2473 (78%

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 61
Summary of Activities

On July 9–10, 2018, we visited North Kingstown, 

Wakefield, and Providence, Rhode Island, to 

meet with leadership, staff, and supported 

employees of the Perspectives Corporation 

and the director of the Rhode Island Sheltered 

Workshop Conversion Institute. The meetings 

began with a visit to the conference room at 

the former Adeline LaPlante Memorial Center 

sheltered workshop. Perspectives Corporation 

acquired Adeline LaPlante in 2013 and assisted 

in transitioning its services from a segregated 

sheltered workshop to a small hub for 77 

people who receive all their employment and 

day services in community-based settings. The 

Perspectives staff reported that it gained the 

confidence to engage in this transformation 

effort following its success in 2016 in closing the 

Perspectives Community Center, another facilitybased day program, over the course of 8 months, 

and moving 49 people to person-centered, 

community-based day activities.

At the Adeline LaPlante location, we met with 

a senior director of the employment program, 

another senior director, a program manager, a 

site supervisor, a direct support professional, 

two community liaisons, and two people with 

disabilities supported in competitive integrated 

employment. We also met separately with the 

CEO of Perspectives Corporation.

Perspectives submitted a multiyear rebalancing 

strategy and plan to the Conversion Institute and 

received ongoing training and TA to implement 

it. Using its grant funds, Perspectives expanded 

its employment department by adding five new 

members to its team so that it now maintains 

three full-time job developers, three full-time 

career developers, and three full-time vocational 

specialists. As a result, the agency has placed 160 

people into competitive integrated employment 

62 National Council on Disability
since 2015, including approximately 40 placed 

since January 2018. With regard to the 114 former 

sheltered workshop’s workers, as of June 30, 2018:

■ 50 people are employed in the community, 

and/or are receiving supported employment 

services to find, keep, and maintain a job in 

competitive integrated employment.

■ 28 people are engaged in discrete 

individualized volunteer activities as a result 

of person-centered plans and the work of 

staff community liaisons.

■ 58 people are engaged with the activities 

department and involved in community 

engagement activities more broadly, 

including during the hours that they are not 

working. (Note: Numbers do not add to 

114 because some people are engaged in 

multiple activities.)

We met with one supported employee who 

formerly worked for years in the Adeline LaPlante 

workshop wrapping soap in paper in exchange 

for subminimum wages on a contract with the 

Bradford Soap Company. She now works in the 

bakery of a community supermarket three days 

per week and earns above minimum wage. She 

reported enjoying her job and especially her 

interactions with the market’s regular customers. 

Although she uses Adeline LaPlante as a hub 

where she stops by on her way to or from work, 

she reported that she does so to keep valued 

friendships and social contacts and to touch base 

with staff, but that she did not want to return to 

the workshop or to spend more time at the center. 

Perspectives staff stated that this employee’s 

supports have faded since she obtained her 

competitive job in the market, and now she no 

longer needs job coaching. This is in contrast 

to her days in the workshop when she was 

supervised through standard 1:8 staffing ratios.

Another supported employee that we met 

with also used to work in Adeline LaPlante’s 

sheltered workshop, where he wrapped soap, 

and worked to sort and pack jewelry on contracts 

with Swarovski and Alex and Ani in exchange 

for subminimum wages. He now works for a 

nearby naval base in the mess hall in an above 

minimum wage job doing dishes, sorting and 

preparing silverware, serving food, managing 

and stocking the milk and juice machines, and 

monitoring the mess hall floor during mealtimes. 

He expressed tremendous pride in his job and 

enjoyment in serving the men and women of 

the military. In fact, he used some of the money 

that he earned working at the base to buy a 

camouflage uniform from a consignment shop. 

He works approximately 13–14 hours per week 

and conveyed that he enjoys numerous social 

connections at his job in addition to positive 

Perspectives

Agency overall budget: $30,000,000

In 2010 (Adeline LaPlate):

■ One hundred and fourteen people in 

sheltered workshop

In 2018:

■ Twenty-five people in competitive 

integrated employment

■ Average wage in CIE: $10.35

■ Average hours in CIE: twelve

■ Twenty-eight in volunteer activities

■ Seventy-seven in community based day 

activities

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 63
relationships with supervisors and coworkers. 

He, too, no longer receives job-coaching support. 

During the hours when he is not working, he 

volunteers at a social service/donation center.

The following day we interviewed the 

director of the Rhode Island Sheltered Workshop 

Conversion Institute, which is housed at the 

State’s University Center for Excellence, Rhode 

Island College’s Paul V. Sherlock Center on 

Disabilities and provides ongoing TA, curricula, 

and training to all provider agencies in the state, 

including workshops engaged in modernization, 

as they expand supported employment strategies 

while reducing the number of people in sheltered 

workshops. The Conversion Institute is funded 

annually through the Rhode Island Department 

of Behavioral Health, Developmental Disabilities 

(DBHDD) budget. In 2015 and early 2016, the 

state’s Sheltered Workshop Conversion Trust Fund 

distributed $80,000–$90,000 to each of the state’s 

nine sheltered workshops to assist them during 

transformation, for instance, by hiring additional 

job coaches, coordinators, and job developers. 

During this time, the Conversion Institute assisted 

the nine workshop grant recipients to develop 

detailed plans including, among other things, how 

to build and expand capacity, train and recruit 

qualified staff, and implement person-centered 

planning strategies across life domains.

Observations

After interviewing Perspectives leadership and 

staff, the critical importance of TA in undergoing 

transformation was apparent. The Perspectives 

employment department has received guidance 

from the Conversion Institute, among other things, 

on person-centered planning, career development, 

and the development of a new business model 

64 National Council on Disability
“A big focus in many service agencies is 

for individuals to participate in community 

activities. Yet, participating in activities is 

different than getting to know people. Some 

of the most common community activities for 

people who receive services (and for many 

of us!) are gong to restaurants, shopping 

and movies. Yet, when was the last time you 

made a new friend at any of those places? 

A big tip for success is to start shifting our 

focus, shifting our thinking, from ‘activities’ to 

‘people.’ The most important question we can 

start asking is: ‘Who are they going to get 

to know there?’ Remember, where will they 

see the same people, in the same place, over 

time? How will they get involved with others 

there, in meaningful ways?”

Person-centered thinking requires 

facilitators to think beyond just the 

services and supports that are paid 

for through public funds

while undergoing the transformation of Adeline 

LaPlante. Nine members of Perspectives 

leadership participated in the Conversion 

Institute’s 18-hour “Person-Centered Thinking” 

facilitator training based on the “Rhode Island 

Person Centered Thinking Guide” and sixteen 

public forums that the Conversion Institute held 

in collaboration with the state’s DD agency on the 

subject.111 A core component of Person-Centered 

Thinking is a facilitator who advises and assists 

the person with a disability to actively participate 

in developing a plan for all domains of his or her 

life. Person-centered thinking requires facilitators 

to think beyond just the services and supports 

that are paid for through public funds. This involves 

a holistic approach to community supports, 

social networks, experiences, technologies, and 

opportunities necessary to reach personal goals.

The Perspectives commitment to providing 

integrated supports to its service recipients 

during non-work hours 

was striking. According 

to statewide data, 

people with disabilities 

in competitive integrated 

employment in Rhode 

Island are working 

on average 11–12 hours per week. Service 

providers feel a strong responsibility to support 

such people during the hours when they are not 

working. Many direct support professionals at 

Perspectives have participated in a multisession 

community membership training from Dr. 

Angela Amado of the University of Minnesota’s 

Institute on Community Integration, entitled 

“Friends: Connecting People With Disabilities 

and Community Members.”112 The curriculum is 

supported by research demonstrating the need 

to support people with disabilities to expand their 

social networks and to broaden their circles of 

support beyond family 

members, paid staff, 

and other people with 

disabilities. The curriculum 

recounts how these 

broader social networks 

can lead to better health outcomes, stronger 

inclusion and connection to the community, and, 

in the long run, economic self-sufficiency and 

advancement. This curriculum has been added 

to Perspectives new employee orientation. 

Moreover, in July 2016, Perspectives formed 

an activities team for the specific purpose of 

expanding access to meaningful community 

engagement, membership, and inclusion. The 

results have been innovative and, in many ways, 

have challenged the organization to disrupt its 

own prior practice of relying on a standard fixed 

schedule for day programming activities that may 

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 65
not have expanded meaningful relationships with 

nondisabled community members. Among other 

things, Perspectives has now created a strategic 

partnership with Brown University’s Swearer 

Center called the Partnership for Adult Learning 

Program (PAL). PAL is a continuing education 

program conducted on Brown’s campus where 

26 student tutors are paired with adults with I/DD 

from seven service providers. Through weekly 

in-person meetings at Brown, students and adults 

with I/DD develop mutual relationships as they 

expand knowledge in academics, vocational skills, 

and hobbies. The Partnership enables people 

with disabilities to access these relationships 

while also pursuing credentials that will further 

their pursuit of their own interests, preferences, 

strengths, and employment goals. Perspectives 

activities team also has engaged in partnerships 

with 28 other mainstream civic organizations to 

create unified volunteer experiences, like Roger 

Williams Park Botanical Center, South Kingstown 

Senior Center, Exeter Public Library, Ronald 

McDonald House, YMCA, Elks Lodge, Knights 

of Columbus, unified sports teams, and a unified 

chorus. In short, Perspectives has assisted in 

creating the same volunteer and recreational 

opportunities that exist for people without 

disabilities. These opportunities build relationships 

between people with and without disabilities 

outside of paid support staff and widen and 

broaden social networks, interest areas, and 

participation in the community. Perspectives 

has plans to expand the PAL Program to the 

University of Rhode Island in the fall of 2018.

Key Success Factors

A key success factor in the conversion of Adeline 

LaPlante was the availability of qualified trained 

staff. The agency’s senior director for employment 

is copresident of the APSE Rhode Island Chapter 

and a member of the RI Employment First Task 

Force. Receiving the support of Perspectives 

CEO, she and all employees of the department 

are both Association of Community Rehabilitation 

Educators (ACRE) certified and have passed the 

Certified Employment Support Professional (CESP) 

exam. The CEO’s leadership was noted as an 

important reason this level of training exists in the 

organization, as she took steps to ensure funding 

to support it, even though staff time to engage in 

such time-intensive professional development is 

not reimbursable through the Medicaid system.

The CEO described how the organization 

first committed to its core mission and values, 

and then rearranged its finances to support that 

mission. She said that she could not have funded 

Adeline LaPlante’s transformation without this 

approach. The CEO also noted the importance 

of ensuring that the organization’s funds were 

diversified so that, even during times when 

budgets were exceedingly tight, she was able 

to ensure high-quality training and professional 

development opportunities for her staff. Like 

others interviewed for this report, the CEO 

strained to think of how Perspectives could have 

succeeded in the conversion process without 

diverse funding sources.

Obstacles and Solutions to 

Transformation Success

One core obstacle to transformation appears to 

be gaining the support of staff that were formerly 

invested in a segregated model of service delivery 

to adjust and support change. Adeline LaPlante 

support staff who had worked there since the 

early 1980s told us that they had become so 

accustomed to the sheltered workshop that 

they were, at first, somewhat resistant to its 

66 National Council on Disability
transformation. They worried that people would 

lose the social connections and support that 

they found at the workshop. However, they also 

noted that the workshop was often out of viable 

contract work and people were not engaged in 

many sustaining work activities during the day, 

even though they wanted to work. Because they 

saw the change as likely inevitable, they supported 

the transformation efforts despite their fears. They 

now appreciate the growth and progress they have 

seen in the lives of people placed into competitive 

integrated employment, while recognizing the 

importance of people with disabilities still having 

a meeting place, like the hub, to check in and 

receive support and social connection with peers 

with disabilities, if and when they would like to.

Leadership and staff noted the difficulty of 

organizing schedules, especially for transportation, 

in the new less-centralized model. The logistical 

aspects of arranging staffing schedules, 

attendance, and vehicles have been challenging 

while trying to recruit, hire, train, and retain 

qualified staff. Perspectives leadership noted 

that the state is in the midst of a direct support 

“staffing crisis,” because it is hard to secure 

and retain qualified staff with the wages paid 

currently to direct support staff. The director of 

the Conversion Institute noted that Perspectives 

has one of the lowest direct support staff turnover 

rates in the state, but still, on some days, there 

are insufficient staff to support some people in the 

community for the full day and people have to be 

limited to half a day of activities. As a short-term 

solution, Perspectives has offered staff overtime, 

enlisted additional drivers, and worked to identify 

volunteers to support people with disabilities in 

some community engagement activities.

Another difficulty is that across Rhode Island, 

people with disabilities are being placed in jobs 

in industries that require unskilled manual labor 

rather than in emerging industries of the future. 

For example, according to a statewide survey of 

the people with I/DD who worked in integrated 

employment in Rhode Island in the fourth quarter 

of 2017:

■ Approximately 19 percent worked in 

janitorial or housekeeping jobs;

■ 13 percent worked as stock clerks or on a 

sales floor and in a stockroom;

■ 11 percent worked as baggers or in carriage 

retrieval jobs;

■ Nearly 8 percent worked in food service 

jobs; and

■ 8 percent worked in dishwasher jobs.

These are precisely the jobs that economists 

fear will be disrupted and displaced by machines. 

In contrast, very few people worked in jobs 

that involved technology of any kind or were 

information based:

■ 1 percent worked as a data entry keyer,

■ 1 person was a social media specialist, and

■ 1 worked as an automotive technician.

Perspectives has established a relationship 

with the Rhode Island Department of Labor and 

Training (RIDLT), which has awarded workforce 

development grants to incubate and expand 

supported employment business models and 

self-employment using public workforce system 

funding. Perspectives signaled its interest in 

further collaborating with RIDLT to expand 

public–private partnerships to support launching 

people with disabilities into the information and 

technology-based industries of the future, including 

through apprenticeships and on-the-job training.

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 67
In meeting with both Perspectives staff and 

the Conversion Institute director, we learned that 

benefits counseling was also crucial to assisting 

people with disabilities and their families to 

overcome the myths about the impact of work 

on public benefits. The Institute has sponsored 

a Benefits Counseling Pilot, where 38 people 

supported by Perspectives received detailed 

benefits plans through a Certified Work Incentive 

Benefits Counselor. Prior to this pilot program, 

however, there were nearly half as many resources 

available in Rhode Island for benefits counseling, 

and even fewer counselors who were certified.

Maine

Purpose of Visit

Maine was selected 

because it has 

significantly decreased 

its reliance on sheltered 

workshops while building 

strong models for 

supported employment. 

In 2006, Maine created 

a waiver program that 

expands supported employment services for 

people with I/DD, while reducing funding for 

sheltered workshops.113

Summary of Activities

On July 24–25, 2018, NCD visited Portland, 

Maine, to meet with the executive director and 

two employment specialists from Katahdin 

Friends, Inc. (KFI), a supported employment 

agency headquartered in Millinocket with satellite 

offices in Portland, Lincoln, and Bangor, Maine.

Observations

KFI is a small, nontraditional organization 

premised upon personalizing supports for people 

with disabilities. Although KFI assists people 

with disabilities to build community and expand 

social connections, it does not run a day program. 

Likewise, though it assists people with disabilities 

to find jobs or to develop their own business, it 

does not run a sheltered workshop or serve as 

the employer-of-record for group employment 

or enclaves. This commitment to being entirely 

community-based and person-centered has made 

this small organization a key player in providing 

TA to other providers across the country that are 

interested in transforming their service models 

away from 14(c) employment.

KFI’s success in providing technical guidance 

began 15 years ago when it was selected by 

the U.S. Department 

of Labor’s Training and 

Technical Assistance 

to Providers (T-TAP) 

grant program, to guide 

other organizations in 

transforming their service 

delivery models away 

from 14(c) employment, 

and more recently, in 2015, 

when its CEO became a Subject Matter Expert 

for the DOL’s Office of Disability Employment 

Policy (OEDP) Employment First State Leadership 

Mentoring program. Without these resources, it 

was noted that it would be difficult to bring the 

lessons learned from rural Maine to agencies 

across the country that are beginning the process 

of modernizing their services.

In its earliest days, KFI did run a sheltered 

workshop. In 1974, the organization received a 

14(c) certificate for the Katahdin Workshop in 

Millinocket, a vocational program for students 

ages 20 and over who had “aged out” of school 

special education services. The workshop was 

in the basement of the Katahdin School. The 

[W]e learned that benefits 

counseling was also crucial to 

assisting people with disabilities 

and their families to overcome the 

myths about the impact of work on 

public benefits

68 National Council on Disability
KFI

■ Sixty-one people in job development 

services

■ Seven people in job coaching/work 

supports

■ Twelve people in WIOA pre-employment 

transition services

■ Five people in customized jobs

KFI engaged in the ”planned systematic 

abandonment of the old.”

Katahdin Workshop obtained contracts to make 

leather utility knife cases, wooden seedling 

racks, and utility clothes from recycled clothing 

for the Great Northern Paper Company, the 

town’s largest employer. In 1981, with federal 

funds from the Bureau of Rehabilitation, the 

organization purchased a building to open Earl 

Bruce Industries, a sheltered workshop where 

people with disabilities worked in industrial 

furniture stripping and refinishing. But in 1986, 

the organization’s leaders were challenged to 

reassess their service model, after receiving a 

grant from the state developmental disability 

service agency to establish individual supported 

employment services. That year, the agency 

made its first competitive job placement when a 

person was hired as an auto reconditioner by K&K 

Motors in Millinocket. By 1989, KFI leadership 

decided that it could sustain a purely supported 

employment model that was better aligned 

with the interests and preferences of its clients. 

That year, it abolished subminimum wages 

and by 1996, KFI abandoned all center-based 

services including in its day program and group/

enclaves. The executive director underscored 

the importance, while undergoing organizational 

change, of drawing clear boundaries about what 

the organization will no longer do.

The executive director commented that, 

understandably, there would always be resistance 

to change on the part of parents and families 

because people have historically equated bricks 

and mortar with safety. But she said, when the 

bricks and mortar are gone, families realize that 

there is more safety in meaningful relationships 

in the community than there ever was in the 

facilities themselves. She noted that KFI performed 

consistent outreach to families as well as to 

the people they supported during this change. 

There was also very intentional peer-to-peer 

support offered by people who were formerly 

in the sheltered workshop who found jobs. She 

saw many family members’ views evolve as 

they witnessed people begin to work and fully 

participate in the community. In addition, she 

reflected that intentionally selecting spaces is 

important for any agency intending to transform 

their services, as a large program space will 

almost always result in a large number of people 

populating it, whereas smaller spaces or office 

spaces will make this not possible and promote 

greater inclusion in the community. Indeed, the KFI 

office that we visited in Portland, Maine, was tiny, 

with only one modest conference room and a small 

office large enough for a single desk and computer.

KFI’s executive director credits the 

organization’s ability to change to the success 

observed in the earliest employees placed in 

competitive integrated employment. The early 

successes caused staff to question the efficacy 

of vocational training provided in segregated 

spaces. They reflected that the sheltered 

workshop taught few of the skills that people 

were using in their competitive jobs, and that 

people were better able to learn these skills on 

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 69
the job. Likewise, staff began to question why 

people with disabilities needed to participate in 

daytime activities in those same spaces when 

they could be supported to engage in their 

community in activities they preferred at times 

and with people they chose when they were not 

working. In other words, KFI’s executive director 

noted that they just decided to support people, 

and not groups, and work with one person at a 

time with a focus on real homes, real jobs, and 

valued social roles. KFI told clients clearly “don’t 

come to us; from now on, we’ll come to you.”

KFI supports 66 people in combinations of 

customized employment 

supports, supports for 

home, and supports for 

other activities. In the 

third quarter of FY 2018, 

41 percent of all the 

people served maintained 

individual competitive 

integrated employment; 

whereas 77 percent of the 

people they served joined 

a community group, club, 

or class; and 71 percent 

volunteered for a nonprofit 

or other community entity (averaging 510 hours 

of volunteer time per month). KFI maintains 95 

full-time staff and 35 part-time staff (including 

104 direct support staff and 26 administrative, 

supervisory, clerical, and other staff).

KFI supported one woman to start her own 

vending machine business. She was especially 

interested in meticulously and repeatedly 

matching various objects by shape and size. KFI 

assisted her to meet with the Small Business 

Association to develop a business plan and 

then take the plan to VR to fund her for selfemployment. She now runs her own business 

restocking and filling vending machines. Another 

person with I/DD who was accused of being a 

“slow worker” in the sheltered workshop became 

“a raging success” working competitively in a 

family restaurant. He was better matched, and 

therefore performed better, in a job where he 

could interact with customers. As a result, his paid 

supports were reduced to just 7 hours per week.

Key Success Factors

KFI now approaches its core mission as 

assisting people with disabilities to have as 

many opportunities as 

possible to become 

regular members of 

their communities 

including by working in 

mainstream businesses 

and participating in 

other civic, social, and 

recreational activities. 

To do so, the executive 

director noted several 

important strategies. She 

stated that it was critical 

that the organization 

committed to values-based decision making. 

Each decision that KFI makes, whether big or 

small, is held up against its overall commitment 

to support people with disabilities to be fully 

included in the community in socially valued 

roles. She also stressed the importance of 

seeing supported employment organizations 

like KFI as professional collaborators. Unlike 

sheltered workshops, where the service provider 

is also the employer, in KFI’s model, the agency 

is the linking organization between a person 

with a disability and the experiences, contacts, 

Another person with I/DD who 

was accused of being a “slow 

worker” in the sheltered workshop 

became “a raging success” working 

competitively in a family restaurant

He was better matched, and therefore 

performed better, in a job where 

he could interact with customers

As a result, his paid supports were 

reduced to just 7 hours per week

70 National Council on Disability
networks of support, and allies that they need 

to find a job, the supports needed on the job, 

and complementary activities to engage in 

during the hours that they are not working. In 

this regard, the agency is first and foremost a 

collaborator with the person with a disability, as 

the client drives his or her own life choices. While 

KFI is not supplying the experiences, they are 

supporting people to find them. Moreover, KFI 

tasks itself with being a collaborator to cultivate 

allies within state government, the business 

community, and social and civic organizations 

to support this goal on an ongoing basis. Finally, 

she stressed the importance of showing the 

benefits of employment once people are placed 

in competitive jobs, including the related cost 

efficiencies.

For example, one person served by KFI was 

described as incredibly expensive to serve 

because he had significant behavioral issues 

that resulted in his moving between numerous 

foster homes. He received 1:1 supports in a day 

program. KFI began to serve him and identified 

his preference for living alone in an apartment, 

but some professional staff believed he should 

not live alone because he might experience 

behavioral outbursts or require continuous paid 

supports in case of emergency. KFI helped him 

find a centrally located apartment that was next 

to an all-night taxi dispatcher’s station. It solved 

a problem: if he broke things, they were his own 

things; and if he needed assistance in case of 

emergency, there were people next door 

24 hours per day, who eventually became his 

friends and natural supports. As a result of 

this move, the individual’s behaviors subsided 

significantly, and he was able to more fully 

participate in community life and maintain many 

social connections, at far less cost.

Obstacles and Solutions to 

Transformation Success

The executive director stressed the importance 

of flexible funding during transformation. The 

state allowed KFI to “unbundle” services, which 

allowed them to fade services in order to address 

the specific needs of each individual as they 

came up, thus creating individualized supports 

for each person served, while also allowing 

reallocation of unused funding to other people in 

crisis or with acute needs. This created flexibility 

and cost efficiencies that generally do not exist in 

Medicaid rate systems in many states today. She 

also noted the importance that bridge funding 

played in incubating new models, reflecting 

upon the importance of initial grant monies 

to experiment with supported employment 

services, and to discover those practices that 

were more likely to work.

KFI leadership and staff noted that many 

organizations make the mistake of worrying that 

they cannot modernize their services until they 

have enough money to do so. While infrastructure 

support is crucial, KFI believes an organization 

can use the money it already has wisely to take 

concrete steps to change service models. In FY 

1996, the same year that the agency decided to 

end all center-based activities, KFI had projected 

revenues of $755,293 and projected income 

over expenses of $3,804 with 81 percent of total 

costs attributable to personnel. At the time, the 

organization had 43 staff members. It continued 

on course to commit its money toward qualified 

staff and community placements rather than 

larger physical plants and fewer trained staff. In FY 

2019, KFI has projected revenue of $6,000,000, 

with a projected income over expenses of 

$391,000, and 77 percent of projected costs 

attributed to 130 trained staff. According to the 

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 71
executive director, this not only makes sense as a 

values proposition, but being entirely community 

based is altogether a better business model.

Vermont

Purpose of Visit

Vermont was selected because it stopped funding 

new entrants to subminimum wage employment 

in 2000, allowing for a three-year phase-out period 

to shut down existing sheltered workshops. This 

transformation began in 1983 when Vermont 

began to provide supported employment 

services to people with disabilities. By 2003, 

Champlain Community Services (Champlain) 

was the last sheltered workshop in the state to 

close. Afterwards, agencies fully transitioned to 

providing supports to people with disabilities in 

competitive integrated employment. Over the past 

two decades, Champlain has become a leader 

in the nation for providing individual supported 

employment and customized employment services, 

and the state of Vermont has named it the state’s 

top supported employment initiative for each of the 

last 7 years. In February 2017, the executive director 

of Champlain along with the director of the Vermont 

Sheltered Workshop Conversion Institute at the 

University of Vermont traveled to a United Nations 

meeting in Austria, with other Vermonters, to 

receive an award from the Zero Project recognizing 

the state for its progress in integrating people with 

disabilities into the workforce.

Summary of Activities

On July 26–27, 2018, the team visited Burlington 

and Colchester, Vermont, to meet with the 

executive director of Champlain, Champlain 

employment staff, and the director of the Vermont 

Sheltered Workshop Conversion Institute. Like 

other providers discussed in this report, Champlain 

provides services for people to obtain competitive 

integrated jobs and to engage in meaningful 

activities during the hours they are not working. 

It currently runs no facility-based employment 

services or day programs. Champlain also assists 

people with disabilities to be entrepreneurs.

Observations

Champlain’s employment program, called 

Way2Work, is an economic empowerment 

agency by and for people with disabilities, local 

employers, and families. Champlain engages 

in a person-centered process of “discovery”114

with each person served by their program, 

inventorying interests and preferences, and 

supporting them to find strong job matches in 

competitive integrated employment. Importantly, 

the agency also engages in an individualized 

process with local employers to inventory their 

business needs. Like Rhode Island, Maine, 

and other states, Vermont’s economy is highly 

dependent on small businesses and “mom and 

pop” operations. Way2Work has experienced 

great success in assisting local employers and 

small businesses to: (1) identify inefficiencies 

in their businesses, (2) incubate better training 

models, (3) diversify their workforce, (4) enhance 

workplace culture and communication, and 

(5) create industry-specific training and adaptive 

technology for their employee(s) with disabilities, 

at no cost to the employer. In this regard, it is a 

valued community partner as much to employers 

and small businesses as to the employees with 

disabilities that it supports.

“For Champlain, clients are clients, and 

employers are clients too.”

72 National Council on Disability
“To be successful, a supported employment 

agency must be of the community, not just 

in the community.”

Way2Work participates in the Vermont 

Supported Employment Consortium, a partnership 

of supported employment professionals comprised 

of 16 agencies including the Vermont Association of 

Business, Industry, and Rehabilitation, along with 

Vermont’s DD, VR, and education agencies and 

postsecondary professionals.

The evening that NCD arrived in Vermont, 

Champlain was hosting a fundraiser at a local 

tavern. The executive director remarked that, 

although the money is useful, the principal 

reason that Champlain hosts such events is to 

remind the entire community, including local 

business, people with disabilities, and others of 

Champlain’s value to it and, in turn, their value 

to Champlain, reinforcing a sense of belonging. 

Champlain aims to serve as a bridge between 

talented workers with disabilities and local 

employers in the community that it serves.

Key Success Factors

Champlain staff described the success of its 

school transition program, School2Work, as a key 

factor in launching young people into competitive 

integrated employment. In this program, the 

agency provides transitioning high school 

students with comprehensive tools to find, seek, 

and obtain competitive integrated employment 

prior to leaving school. The executive director 

explained that the organization has seen students 

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 73
with disabilities and their families fully embrace 

competitive integrated employment over the past 

decade. Without the availability of segregated 

service models, she 

remarked that students 

with disabilities have 

grown up in Vermont 

having assumed 

high expectations 

for themselves, and 

received the curriculum, 

instruction, and workbased learning to work 

in competitive integrated 

employment.

Another key success factor has been 

Champlain’s innovative supports for selfemployment. In 2007, Vermont received a 

three-year Medicaid Infrastructure Grant to 

support self-employment initiatives for people 

with disabilities throughout the state. Building 

on the success of that program, Champlain 

has committed resources to supporting people 

with disabilities to be entrepreneurs and to 

customize their own businesses. For example, 

a 28-year-old woman with I/DD started a horse 

treat business, Nickering Nuggets, where she 

sells preservative-free peppermint-flavored horse 

treats to horse owners and boarders at a cost 

of $3.00 per bag of 10. Nickering Nuggets is 

one of five microbusinesses in the incubation 

stage, supported by Champlain. The start-up 

owner bakes the treats, mixing oats, molasses, 

peppermint oil, wheat flour, and water together, 

making between two and three batches of 

24 cookies at a time, to create enough product 

to sell to local stables. Prior to her business’s 

launch, Champlain provided supports as she 

developed product molding, branding materials, a 

recipe, and chose among various product design 

considerations like the taste and the longevity of 

the treats. Then she undertook an outreach and 

marketing strategy to 

convince barns to carry 

her product. Champlain 

has assisted her to 

certify her business 

with the state. Nickering 

Nuggets was a strong 

job match for the owner 

because of her interest in 

“There has been a discernible shift in the 

expectations of families of youth with 

disabilities, one that moved from, ‘my child 

is unemployable,’ to ‘my child has a right and 

responsibility to work.’”

Champlain Way2Work

■ Seventy staff, including forty-five direct 

support professionals

■ Forty-six people placed in competitive 

integrated jobs in 2017

■ Eight-five percent of people served are 

employed.

■ Works with nearly sixty businesses

■ When its entrepreneurs program began, 

Champlain supported five people with 

disabilities in self-employment, and now 

supports about twenty-five people.

[S]tudents with disabilities have 

grown up in Vermont having 

assumed high expectations for 

themselves, and received the 

curriculum, instruction, and 

work-based learning to work in 

competitive integrated employment

74 National Council on Disability
NEBA

■ $3.2 million annual budget

■ Two hundred and fifty-four people 

with disabilities served annually—in 

employment, self-employment, skillbuilding, and community inclusion

■ Nine people assisted to start businesses in 

2017.

animals and the therapeutic benefits of working 

with them, as well as an opportunity for her 

to deepen, strengthen, and expand her social 

interactions, business formulas, problem solving, 

and independence.

Obstacles and Solutions to 

Transformation Success

The executive director of Champlain and the 

director of the Vermont Sheltered Workshop 

Conversion Institute noted that, like other places, 

Vermont is undergoing a direct support staffing 

crisis. Champlain incurred the expenses of high 

turnover in the past. In FY 2017, however, it was 

able to reduce staff turnover from 42 percent to 

30 percent. Because salaries and benefits make 

up the majority of Champlain’s annual expenses, 

reducing the cost of retraining and acclimating 

new employees to the values, training, and 

objectives of the organization is significant. To 

address the high turnover rate, Champlain began 

to provide professional development and training 

opportunities, pay incentives, benefits plans, 

and even a microloan program for support staff. 

The money to support these changes came from 

additional fund-raising and contracts over and 

above the funds acquired through Medicaid.

Massachusetts

Purpose of Visit

Massachusetts was selected because within the 

past 5 years it has announced its commitment to 

rebalancing its employment service system. In 

November 2013, the state issued the Blueprint 

for Success, a statewide plan that committed to 

closing the front door of workshops to all new 

referrals and phasing out sheltered workshops 

by a certain date, while transitioning people into 

integrated employment.115

Summary of Activities

On July 26–27, 2018, NCD visited New England 

Business Associates (NEBA) in Springfield, 

Massachusetts, where we met with NEBA’s 

executive director, finance director, HR specialist, 

and program director for employment services. 

NEBA focuses on the employment needs of 

people with disabilities and their communities 

in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Founded in 

1983, the NEBA has never paid subminimum 

wages or operated a sheltered workshop.

Observations

NEBA’s services are designed to support people 

with disabilities to: (1) achieve competitive 

integrated employment based on their individual 

preferences and needs; (2) expand and 

strengthen natural supports; (3) maximize work 

hours; and (4) experience integrated community 

settings during the hours they are not working. 

NEBA also specializes in comprehensive 

services to assist people in self-employment and 

entrepreneurship.

NEBA receives revenue from the State’s 

Department of Developmental Disabilities, the 

Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission, 

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 75
the Bureau of Rehabilitation Services, the 

Department of Transitional Assistance, and local 

school system contracts.

The most striking aspect of NEBA, and its 

agency and staff, is its clarity of purpose in the 

role it plays in the lives of the people it serves. 

Like other organizations profiled in this report, 

NEBA is neither the employer nor principally a 

“place” for people with disabilities to go. Instead, 

in the words of one staff person, the agency 

is “a work-around” 

from the facility-based 

employment model, 

as its employment 

consultants begin with 

each person and work 

to support them to find 

the people, services, and 

supports they need to 

succeed in competitive 

integrated employment 

and career advancement.

To support its highly individualized service 

model, NEBA has diversified its funding 

sources to include, not just the developmental 

disability and VR service agencies, but also the 

Massachusetts welfare system and contracts 

with various school systems to provide 

transition services to youth with disabilities. 

The agency supports people with disabilities 

to find competitive integrated employment 

in a range of industries and work settings. 

For example, NEBA has supported people 

with disabilities to find, obtain, and retain 

competitive integrated employment in retail 

establishments, and in the service, clerical, 

hospitality, customer 

service, child care, 

and direct support 

industries.

The executive 

director and NEBA staff 

commented on the 

growth in confidence, 

self-worth, and sense of 

inclusion observed when 

people with disabilities 

enter competitive integrated employment. 

The executive director said that employment 

is transformative for the people they serve and 

for families too. In particular, she stated that 

families’ viewpoints often change from hesitance 

about working in the community to full support 

after they see how successful a family member 

can be in a typical work setting, and how that 

success can run to other domains of life. In the 

executive director’s view, employment can give 

family members a new vision for what it means 

for a son, daughter, or sibling to engage in ageappropriate roles.

Leveraging its own entrepreneurial spirit, 

NEBA has supported people with disabilities 

to be entrepreneurs and to create start-up 

businesses. For example, one person was 

supported by NEBA to start his own web design 

[F]amilies’ viewpoints often change 

from hesitance about working in 

the community to full support after 

they see how successful a family 

member can be in a typical work 

setting, and how that success can 

run to other domains of life

“We are detectives for integration.”

The fact of someone working can often 

transition them in the mind of the family 

from “an eternal child to now a responsible 

adult.”

76 National Council on Disability
■ Four hundred and eighteen people with 

disabilities received skills training in 2017.

■ Four hundred and sixteen were placed in 

competitive integrated employment.

■ Annual income of the four hundred and 

eighteen people = $5 million over two 

years.

■ State revenue estimated savings = 

$5 million over two years.

company. He was deeply interested in computers 

and had trouble finding employment with more 

traditional technology companies. NEBA referred 

him to an information technology specialist to 

help him expand his skills with web design, 

assisted him to learn about small business 

ownership through a course at a community 

college, and helped him complete the paperwork 

to start a small business. He then began a startup web design company and grew a client base, 

which has expanded to over 30 regular clients in 

western Massachusetts.

NEBA staff commented on the power of 

self-employment and entrepreneurship to 

allow people with disabilities to capitalize 

on their unique talents, experience a high 

level of customization in their jobs, and build 

independence, personal autonomy, and financial 

freedom. However, they lamented the barriers 

that remain for people with disabilities to access 

the public workforce system to incubate new 

businesses. While NEBA helps to link people 

with disabilities to the resources necessary to 

create small businesses, they said that many 

more people would benefit from more formalized 

relationships between the Small Business 

Administration (SBA), VR, providers, and people 

with disabilities, and from new sources of 

unprogrammed “start-up” capital to create such 

businesses.

For both self-employment and other 

competitive integrated employment, NEBA’s 

executive director described a strong job match 

as not only vital to supporting people with 

disabilities to acquire positive socially valued 

roles, and inclusion in the community, but also as 

something that makes good economic sense. In 

2017, NEBA established or continued partnerships 

with 639 employers, assisting them to inventory 

their business needs, create greater efficiencies, 

utilize better training and supports, and diversify 

their workforce at no cost to the employer. 

In addition, nine people with disabilities were 

supported to start small businesses.116 NEBA 

staff also described youths emerging from school 

transition programs as increasingly ready to work 

in competitive integrated employment, with 

the highest expectations, and on average less 

expensive to serve while producing significant 

returns to the local economy.

NEBA has calculated that the average cost of 

services per person referred by the VR system 

is $5,000, while the same people in NEBA’s 

programs are earning, on average, $12,600 

per year. Taking western Massachusetts as an 

example, NEBA’s clients are working in a range of 

jobs and industries, at an average wage of $11.05 

per hour for 20 hours per week. With NEBA’s 

“Supported employment is a vital economic 

stimulus for the whole community.”

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 77
assistance, numerous people have obtained jobs 

at or near 40 hours per week.

Key Success Factors

According to the executive director, much of the 

agency’s success is possible because of the high 

quality of their staff. NEBA staff are inventive 

and inquisitive in matching people with jobs that 

correspond to their preferences and strengths, 

and they demonstrate a high level of flexibility 

and personalization in how they provide services. 

Some NEBA staff, like the HR specialist, formerly 

ran small businesses of their own, and identify 

and relate to the unique needs of businesses 

and the importance of a strong job match. 

This combination of 

out-of-the-box thinking 

with understanding 

business needs is what 

precipitates, in the staff’s 

view, strong employment 

placements.

For example, the staff 

explained that at one 

time they supported a 

nonverbal person with autism who was formerly 

labeled by VR as unemployable. This person 

had significant behavioral support needs, and 

during his placement in a sheltered workshop, 

he was documented to have “beaten himself 

up” almost every day. He was then referred to 

NEBA where an employment consultant began 

to explore his preferences and interests. The 

consultant observed that anytime he walked 

near houses in a residential neighborhood, 

he wanted to stop to look at storm doors. He 

was fascinated with the shape, design, and 

composition of the doors. NEBA supported 

this person to obtain competitive integrated 

employment. During the hours that he is not 

working, they support him to go to Home Depot 

as a way to utilize his interest in storm doors to 

work on his social pragmatic language skills. The 

individual’s behaviors subsided, and he is now 

communicating verbally and no longer receives 

speech and language services. Since he began 

going to Home Depot, he has established 

relationships there, and is interested in seeking 

employment there in the future. According 

to the employment consultant, working has 

become a virtuous cycle, as he now sees the 

relationship between his behavior at work and 

his ability to earn a paycheck; his paycheck 

has taken on new value to him, now that it is 

substantial enough to 

fund his participation 

in other integrated and 

recreational activities in 

the community; and the 

more fully included he is 

in community activities, 

the fewer incidents 

of misbehavior he 

experiences, making it easier for him to sustain 

his job.

Obstacles and Solutions to 

Transformation Success

The NEBA staff described how the limitations 

of the Medicaid rate structure could often be a 

barrier to competitive integrated employment. 

NEBA’s executive director described a notable 

difference between the Medicaid rate structure 

in Massachusetts versus Connecticut in creating 

incentives for supported and customized 

employment services for people with disabilities. 

With its programs in Connecticut, NEBA is paid 

an incentive rate, on top of a lower base rate, 

[H]is paycheck has taken on 

new value to him, now that it is 

substantial enough to fund his 

participation in other integrated 

and recreational activities in the 

community

78 National Council on Disability
based on outcomes, including how many people 

are placed in competitive integrated employment 

and the number of hours that they work per 

week. In Massachusetts, however, they are 

paid hourly rates based just on face-to-face time 

with clients. In the latter formulation, NEBA is 

penalized for the increasing independence of its 

clients and their use of natural supports once 

people are stabilized on the job and no longer 

in need of as intensive supports. By contrast, in 

Connecticut, the agency is incentivized to help 

the client to work as independently as possible, 

for the maximum number of hours per week, 

and for supports to fade. These different rate 

structures have produced different outcomes 

overall between the two states. For instance, 

the number of hours worked per week by 

clients in competitive integrated employment in 

Connecticut is higher than in Massachusetts.

In addition, the NEBA staff described the 

lack of certified benefits counselors as a barrier 

to transitioning more people into competitive 

integrated employment. Often, the NEBA staff 

have observed people who can, and likely should, 

transition off public benefits, but who lack the 

individualized benefits counseling to help them 

do so or maintain fears about the ramifications of 

losing their health care.

West Coast Tour

Oregon

Purpose of Visit

Oregon was chosen because it has been 

working to systemically transform employment 

services for people with I/DD from facility-based 

subminimum-wage models to community-based 

competitive integrated employment since 2015. 

As of 2015, small-group employment in Oregon is 

required to be paid at or above the state minimum 

wage.117 Sheltered work in Oregon continues to 

be payable at subminimum wages. Data regarding 

employment outcomes for people with I/DD 

shows substantial increases in people with I/DD 

entering competitive integrated employment over 

the past three years, as well as decreases in the 

number in small-group and facility-based work.118

Average wages in September 2017 in competitive 

integrated employment in Oregon were nearly 

$11 per hour (above the then-current standard 

state minimum wage of $10.25).119 Wages for 

sheltered workers were less than $6 per hour.120

Because Oregon specifically supported sheltered 

workshops to transition to supported employment 

services in competitive integrated employment, 

Oregon offers useful insights into how providers 

can transform their service models and barriers to 

such transformation.

Summary of Activities

On July 30–31, 2018, NCD visited McMinnville, 

Hillsboro, and Portland, Oregon to meet with 

employment service providers, disability groups, 

employer associations, experts, and other 

stakeholders.

NCD visited MV Advancements121 in 

McMinnville, Oregon, a rural area in the 

northwest section of Oregon between Portland 

and Salem, on July 30, 2018. The visit began 

with a meeting of the leaders and staff of the 

organization in the conference room at the 

site of its wood products shop, which formerly 

operated as a sheltered workshop. After the 

meeting, NCD toured the wood products shop, 

which builds wooden pallets, shipping crates, and 

bins for commercial clients. MV Advancements 

also had an Industrial Services facility, in 

which employees with disabilities engaged in 

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 79
repackaging, production, and shredding, which 

had closed on June 28, 2018. NCD also drove by 

the MV Advancements ice cream shop, which is 

operated by people with I/DD. MV Advancements 

also offers residential services and three facilitybased day programs. MV currently supports 123 

people with disabilities in competitive integrated 

employment, 76 people in small-group supported 

employment, and 10 people with “employment 

path” supports in the community. As MV 

Advancements closed its workshop programs, 

of the 88 workshop workers, initially 32 people 

moved to small-group employment, 12 obtained 

integrated employment, 12 moved to day 

support, 2 entered job development, 13 retired or 

exited services, and a few are unknown. 

MV Advancements used small-group 

employment as a stepping stone from the 

workshop to competitive integrated employment, 

if it was clear that it was a short-term setting.

Later that day, NCD met with the Tualatin 

Valley Workshop (TVW) 122 in Hillsboro, Oregon, 

including the executive director and staff of 

the organization and toured the workshop 

facility, which assembles and packages various 

products. When NCD arrived, employees with 

disabilities were leaving for the day and one 

person stopped the team in the parking lot to 

spontaneously announce that she was getting 

a new job on Friday clearing tables and washing 

dishes at a restaurant. She was very excited 

about the new opportunity for community-based 

employment. TVW has reduced its sheltered 

workshop census, with approximately 37 people 

with I/DD transitioning to competitive integrated 

MV Advancements

Three years ago:

■ Eighty-eight people with I/DD in Wood 

Products and Industrial Services 

workshops.

Now:

■ One hundred and twenty-three people in 

CIE

● Average wage = $11.41

● Average hours = twenty-one/week

■ Seventy-six people in small group

■ Ten at Serendipity ice cream store 

(Employment Path Community)

■ Industrial services closed

■ No subminimum wage work

TVW

Budget -- $6,089,817

Three years ago:

■ Eighty-seven people in workshop

Now:

■ Fifty-two people in workshop (closing 

March 2019)

■ Eighty people in CIE (37 transitioned from 

workshop)

● Average wage= $12.13

● Average hours = 13.3/wk

■ No subminimum wage

80 National Council on Disability
Wise

Supported employment technical assistance 

provider for Oregon and Washington

■ Develops innovative best practices in 

supported employment

■ Provides immersive technical assistance to 

government systems and service providers

■ Provides developmental training to 

supported employment staff

employment. TVW plans to close its workshop 

in March 2019. TVW also offers day services, a 

janitorial service that pays competitive wages 

and is open to both people with various types of 

disabilities and without disabilities, and recently 

entered into a partnership with a local school 

to offer community-based transition services 

for students with disabilities. TVW found it 

challenging to maintain the two service models, 

which require different staff skills and have 

different funding mechanisms, at the same time 

during the transition. In addition, it found that 

starting the supported employment program, 

which is funded by afterthe-fact reimbursement, 

to be difficult and that 

bridge funding was 

important to get started. 

TVW faced significant 

resistance from families 

at first, but after 

transition, the employees 

with disabilities and 

their families report that 

although they thought 

they would never be 

able to work in the 

community, now they are happy with the results 

and have greater confidence, independence, 

and financial health, along with an improved 

quality of life and greater networks of colleagues 

and friends.

On July 31, 2018, NCD met with 

representatives of the Oregon Manufacturing 

Extension Partnership (OMEP), an association 

of manufacturing industry employers based 

at the National Institute of Standards and 

Technology, to discuss their HR and labor needs, 

their approaches to technology, on-boarding, 

on-the-job training, 

and their awareness 

of the state’s efforts to 

support employees with 

disabilities in integrated 

jobs. Manufacturing 

Extension Partnership 

is a public–private 

partnership working in 

all 50 states and Puerto 

Rico and works with 

1,300 manufacturing 

experts at over 400 service locations. NCD 

then met in Portland with a group of Oregon 

stakeholders, including employment services 

providers, disability organizations and advocates, 

family groups, and experts in supported 

employment. NCD also met with the executive 

director of WISE (Washington Initiative for 

Supported Employment),123 which provides 

Oregon and Washington with expert TA to the 

states and employment services providers 

regarding transforming workshops and increasing 

competitive integrated employment.

When NCD arrived, employees with 

disabilities were leaving for the day 

and one person stopped the team 

in the parking lot to spontaneously 

announce that she was getting a 

new job on Friday clearing tables 

and washing dishes at a restaurant

She was very excited about the new 

opportunity for community-based 

employment

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 81
Observations

Service providers in Oregon who are several 

years into transitioning segregated subminimum 

wage employment programs to competitive 

integrated employment programs noted that 

such a transition process is important to the goal 

of ensuring that all people with disabilities can 

benefit from supported employment services, 

not just people who are newly entering the 

employment services system. These service 

providers agreed that the workers in their 

workshops were capable of working in 

competitive integrated employment with the 

right supports and opposed any suggestion 

that current sheltered workers should remain in 

workshops while new entrants were diverted 

to competitive integrated employment. They 

emphasized that no one should be left behind 

in the move toward competitive integrated 

employment. These providers were committed 

to the people who use their services, not to the 

sheltered workshop model, and were happy 

to engage in transformation for the benefit of 

both new entrants and people for whom the 

state had previously funded workshop services. 

Some were concerned that initial discussions 

about disability employment services in Oregon 

sometimes portrayed all service providers as 

having low expectations for their clients, insisting 

on the sheltered workshop model for business or 

profit reasons, or opposing greater opportunities 

for people with I/DD. The interviewees reported 

that this perception made some providers less 

willing to engage in transformation.

Service providers, as well as advocates and 

experts, noted that the transition to competitive 

integrated employment is often more difficult for 

people who have worked in segregated settings, 

not necessarily because of their disabilities, 

but because they have been acculturated 

to a workplace that differs significantly 

from integrated workplaces and that is not 

generalizable to the experience of working in a 

mainstream place of employment. For example, 

the employment relationship in a workshop often 

hinges more on supervision and day custody 

than on a concrete set of job requirements and 

expectations. As such, disruptive behaviors, 

poor hygiene, and unexplained absenteeism 

in sheltered workshops are often allowed to 

continue. In addition, workshops often cultivate 

dependence, not only for work activities, but 

for meals, social activities, and transportation. 

Therefore, service providers stated that it often 

takes longer, more intensive services to help a 

sheltered employee develop new expectations, 

soft skills, and work behaviors that are suitable 

to the competitive integrated workplace. 

Because of this, some providers felt smallgroup employment in an integrated setting was 

useful as a temporary interim bridge placement 

between sheltered work and fully integrated 

work in order to allow workers to learn and 

practice new work habits and expectations 

more appropriate to competitive integrated 

workplaces. However, they were clear that such 

interim group placements should be short term 

(“a service, not a job”), with a clear expectation 

“We can’t protect people from real life. We 

employed a person with a serious hygiene 

problem [in a workshop] for years without 

consequence. We didn’t prepare him for the 

real world; we own that.”

82 National Council on Disability
“We don’t knock on [businesses’] doors 

asking for favors. We knock on doors with 

solutions.”

that the end goal is competitive integrated 

employment. Other national SMEs that we 

interviewed for this report strongly cautioned 

against using group-supported employment as 

a stepping stone, referring to longitudinal data 

in several states, such as Wisconsin, that show 

that using group-supported employment as a 

bridge has significantly increased the group 

employment population long term and has not 

increased competitive integrated employment. In 

their estimation, the best way to learn soft skills 

for jobs in the mainstream economy is on the 

job. Their observations confirm that segregated 

placements are not effective as a stepping 

stone to competitive integrated employment, 

and people with disabilities, regardless of 

severity, were more easily supported when they 

transitioned directly from school to competitive 

integrated employment.

Providers, experts, and stakeholders agreed 

that simply raising the wages in sheltered 

workshops would not be sufficient to equip 

workers with disabilities for mainstream 

employment, because of the divergence of 

expectations from integrated jobs, the limits on 

soft-skill development in workshops, and the 

suppression of long-term advancement and pay 

raises in workshops. Moreover, stakeholders and 

experts agreed that closing the front doors to 

the workshops by not permitting new entrants 

was important to make transition more effective. 

In addition, providers observed that the risk and 

consequences of being fired from a competitive 

integrated job can be a strong motivator for 

people with (and without) disabilities to improve 

their workplace behavior and productivity and 

illustrates that it is important that expectations 

and services not depend on the success of a 

single initial placement. Service systems must 

recognize that not every job is a good fit and be 

prepared to continue services until a good job 

match is found, as well as to support promotion 

and job changes.

Key Success Factors

When asked about key factors in successful 

transformation, the service providers 

emphasized the need for positive, committed 

leadership following principles that value 

integration for the people they serve and that 

begin with the presumption that competitive 

integrated employment is achievable. At both 

MV Advancements and TVW, new leadership 

brought a positive, committed approach to 

transformation and implementing the new model 

of services. Both of these providers possess 

a very apparent creativity, positive energy, and 

willingness to explore and try new approaches 

in the transformation. In addition, the providers 

who were most successful at transformation 

took a business approach, rather than a social 

work approach, to transformation. Their goal was 

to serve both their sets of customers—their 

clients with disabilities and the businesses with 

whom they placed and supported employees. 

These providers approached potential employers 

with a business proposition—to help meet their 

real needs, and provide real added value, by 

providing qualified employees—not a charitable 

request. These providers also saw that most 

new entrants to the disability employment 

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 83
system no longer seek segregated subminimum 

wage employment, and the service providers 

must respond to that dwindling demand. Some 

expressed skepticism that sheltered workshops 

could be sustainable in the face of such a 

changed market, particularly without federal 

subsidies and subminimum wages.

A key factor in successful transformation 

was access to expertise, quality TA, and core 

competencies on how to accomplish the change 

and successfully implement the new model. 

A goal of closing a workshop was not sufficient 

without resources to show how a new model 

could be achieved. In 

Oregon, the providers 

were grateful for the expert 

assistance they received 

from the state-funded 

Transformation Project, 

which showed them what 

was possible and how to 

achieve it. All stakeholders 

and experts in Oregon also 

emphasized that another 

key factor in transformation 

was Oregon’s provision 

of several years of flexible grant assistance 

as bridge funding through the Transformation 

Project. These transformation grants allowed 

providers to purchase what they needed to build 

their new model, even while gradually closing the 

old model. Providers used these funds to hire job 

developers and employment specialists, to train 

workshop staff in new service models, to adapt 

the tools used by experts to meet their particular 

needs, and fill service gaps to support individual 

job placements. Providers who transitioned from 

sheltered programs to competitive integrated 

employment programs in Washington and 

other states prior to Oregon’s current initiative 

noted that these grants sped up the process of 

transformation substantially (from over 8 years 

to approximately 3 years). Stakeholders noted 

that early transition 

funding needs to 

be flexible and may 

be more effective if 

limited to providers 

who demonstrate 

a real commitment 

to transformation. 

However, they also 

discussed that some 

providers’ initial grant 

applications might not 

have met that test 

at the time of their applications but eventually, 

thanks to the grants, developed the necessary 

momentum and commitment and were 

successful. Stakeholders suggested that in later 

years of transition, grants should be tied to the 

outcomes.

Providers in Oregon also noted that having 

or developing a diversity of funding sources, 

such as fund-raising, fee-for-service, business 

income, as well as having financial expertise, 

was important as transformation took hold, 

particularly in the early stages. All the providers 

NCD spoke with were clear that the new 

[T]he providers who were most 

successful at transformation 

took a business approach, rather 

than a social work approach, to 

transformation. Their goal was to

serve both their sets of customers—

their clients with disabilities and the 

businesses with whom they placed 

and supported employees

“Sheltered workshops are on the Titanic 

headed for the iceberg. We know it’s going to 

sink. We need to build more lifeboats and get 

people in the lifeboats or we’ll all go down 

with the ship.”

84 National Council on Disability
individual placement model was financially 

sustainable without maintaining a sheltered 

workshop. They also indicated that repeated 

changes to government service rates created 

unpredictability that made it difficult to adjust.

The providers stated that their physical 

facilities were an asset to them in transformation 

because they owned the buildings and 

equipment and could sell them, lease them, 

or repurpose them in ways that supported the 

new service model. They also found that their 

existing staff at the workshops were sometimes 

able to transition to the new model effectively 

and sometimes were not and that, early on, it 

took substantial time (6 months to nearly a year) 

to retrain workshop staff to provide supported 

employment services in competitive integrated 

employment. Supported employment experts 

agreed that workshop staff could be retrained to 

provide supported employment services if they 

were motivated to make the change. Some of 

the delay is caused by the paucity of approved 

training and certification providers (e.g., Virginia 

Commonwealth University training and Cornell 

training), so the service providers have used 

new options for training to speed up their 

staff’s achievement of productivity. They found 

that whether existing workshop staff could 

make the change depended on the person’s 

values, skills, and commitment. Regarding 

hiring new supported employment staff, some 

providers and other stakeholders found that 

people with customer service, marketing, and 

teaching skills were often a better fit for the 

work than traditional social-work skills. Experts 

in supported employment services agreed 

that supported employment professional jobs 

compete with customer service, marketing, 

teaching, and VR careers for applicants, so they 

need to be paid at those levels in order to attract 

quality staff.

The Oregon providers found that employers 

in a wide variety of industries with a wide variety 

of jobs were hiring supported employees. There 

was no one industry where “most” people went. 

MV Advancements also found that some of their 

sheltered workshops’ contract customers were 

willing to hire workshop workers directly or as 

small-group in-house contractors. Other contract 

customers, however, had been conditioned to 

think of their contracts with workshops as a 

charitable act or as a means of reducing costs 

and did not understand the value the workers 

could bring to their businesses as employees. 

Other contract customers cited union contracts 

or the cost of purchasing the equipment used 

on the job as barriers to hiring former sheltered 

workers to do the jobs in-house. However, 

MV Advancements found that placing a small 

group with one of its customers convinced the 

customer that bringing on more workers with 

disabilities was good for their business and 

their culture. TVW was exploring the possibility 

of workshop staff or sheltered workers taking 

over some of their contracts as independent 

businesses; however, they were finding the 

VR rules on entrepreneurship for people with 

disabilities to be difficult to work with. TVW 

had also invited outside employers to tour 

the workshop and succeeded in having some 

sheltered workers hired by those employers and 

has successfully engaged the local Chamber 

of Commerce and local city government in 

celebrating the workshop closure and hiring 

the people with disabilities who worked there. 

Providers and other stakeholders noted that 

engaging businesses and other employers 

is important to future transformation efforts 

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 85
at both the statewide and provider levels to 

prepare them to access the pipeline of qualified 

supported workers with disabilities.

Obstacles and Solutions to 

Transformation Success

The Oregon providers that NCD interviewed 

found resistance from existing clients’ families, 

service coordinators, and residential service 

providers to be obstacles to their transformation. 

Some of these stakeholders felt the sheltered 

workshop was good enough and feared that 

change would be too disruptive and require too 

much effort, with a possibility of failure causing 

more harm than good. 

Other concerns included 

fear of what would 

happen if an individual 

placement did not work 

out, possible reductions 

in hours and the need to 

occupy non-work time, 

and fear of the impact 

increased income would 

have on eligibility for 

public benefits. Some 

of those concerns were based on the impact 

of the change on the family or the residential 

service provider, others were based on the 

impact on the workshop program participant. 

MV Advancements used many approaches to 

generate buy-in for transformation, including 

community forums, rotating closures of the 

workshop to help workers and their families 

adjust to the change, and sharing individual 

placement success stories. They found that, in 

order for community forums to be successful, a 

provider needed access to expertise to be able to 

answer stakeholders’ questions about benefits, 

non-work hours, and back-up plans. Success 

stories about and by people with disabilities were 

a particularly successful buy-in strategy, including 

having former sheltered workers return to talk 

about their successful transitions to competitive 

integrated employment. TVW also physically 

separated its workshop area within the TVW 

building, constructing a new wall between the 

shop and its other offices, lending a physical 

reminder that two different services were 

being provided during the transition (sheltered 

services and supported employment services) 

and that moving from within the workshop walls 

to outside the workshop was desirable, visible, 

and achievable. Some 

providers thought firm 

early closure dates 

for the workshops 

might have been a 

useful strategy for 

forcing families and 

residential providers to 

start engaging with the 

new model, but these 

providers did not take 

that approach for fear of 

leaving some of their clients behind. Instead, they 

chose to gradually decrease the size of workshop 

operations as they increased placements in 

competitive integrated employment. Participants 

in the stakeholder meeting in Oregon noted the 

continued need for more benefits planners to 

assuage workers’ and families’ fears over the 

impact of competitive income on government 

benefits and health care and noted that Oregon is 

currently focusing on increasing benefits planning 

capacity. MV Advancements is also developing 

a handbook for supported employees to help 

set clear shared expectations about competitive 

Providers and other stakeholders 

noted that engaging businesses 

and other employers is important to 

future transformation efforts at both 

the statewide and provider levels to 

prepare them to access the pipeline 

of qualified supported workers with 

disabilities

86 National Council on Disability
integrated employment. Supported employment 

experts noted that supporting self-advocacy 

groups would go a long way toward developing 

employment service systems that serve the 

expressed needs and choices of people with 

disabilities.

Oregon providers found that systemic 

changes with the state’s VR program, which 

happened largely at the same time as provider 

transformation efforts took place, created 

difficulties in terms of receiving consistent 

advice, having consistent points of contact, 

and having a stable, shared understanding of 

the rules. In addition, staff turnover in training, 

approval, and oversight, 

and inconsistencies in 

interpretation between 

one government office 

and another and even 

between one employee 

of an office and another, 

inhibited providers’ 

efforts to implement 

emerging strategies, to 

get new staff trained and 

working productively, and to bring successful 

strategies to scale.

Providers and other stakeholders also noted 

the importance of connecting with schools in 

order to prepare students with disabilities for 

competitive integrated employment so they do 

not fall into a gap of unemployment or sheltered 

workshop services between the school and 

the adult service system. All had found these 

connections difficult to establish, noting that until 

very recently most special education programs 

knew nothing about employment services. At 

the Oregon stakeholder meeting, some noted 

progress, including through the state’s policy of 

prohibiting mock sheltered workshop activities in 

schools and promoting youth transition strategies 

like Project Search and Seamless Transition. Both 

MV Advancements and TVW specifically reached 

out to local schools to assist in their transition 

programs and to train teachers and assistants 

about VR and supported employment services.

Government funding also significantly affects 

transformation. Providers noted that small but 

frequent changes in rates made budgeting 

difficult. Experts noted that rates based on 

service hours rather than outcomes would 

likely be problematic in the long term. And all 

stakeholders noted that Oregon continues to 

wrestle with how best to 

balance a rate structure 

that prefers face-to-face 

services versus the need 

to incentivize providers 

to fade job coaching and 

other support services 

when the client no longer 

needs them.

Providers and 

some stakeholders 

noted that people with I/DD, their families, 

and their residential service providers were 

rightly concerned that competitive integrated 

employment might result in fewer “work” hours 

than the hours formerly spent in the sheltered 

workshop. However, they largely acknowledged 

that during some of the hours people spent at 

sheltered workshops they were not actually 

working. The question, therefore, was really 

about how many hours the person would have to 

fill outside their jobs and whether services would 

be available to make those hours meaningful. 

Both MV Advancements and TVW operate facilitybased day programs, but both were careful not to 

Supported employment experts 

noted that supporting self-advocacy 

groups would go a long way toward 

developing employment service 

systems that serve the expressed 

needs and choices of people with 

disabilities

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 87
let those programs become a fallback for those 

leaving sheltered workshops, which would have 

undermined efforts by both the providers and 

the clients to really commit to implementing 

competitive integrated employment and might 

have created conflicts of interest. Stakeholders 

recommended that Oregon’s day services 

program be addressed through a transition 

process similar to its employment services 

transformation initiative, and that its resources 

be rebalanced to promote person-centered and 

integrated day services during the hours when 

people are not working.

Staff from MV Advancements mentioned 

that, particularly in rural areas, where public 

transportation is limited, transportation remains 

a barrier for people with disabilities and an 

additional cost for supported employment 

providers.

Shared Expectations

Clear, consistent, and mutually understood goals 

and expectations between government service 

funders and service providers were perhaps the 

most important factors that providers, experts, 

and stakeholders pointed to as essential to 

effective transition, both on the statewide and 

on the provider level. Clarity and consistency 

as to the funder’s expectations were cited as 

essential for providers to plan, invest, budget, 

and implement both their transformations and 

their long-term service models.

In Oregon, defining what outcomes the 

state would pay for and how it would assess 

whether the outcomes were met helped 

establish the rules of the game. Those rules 

require competitive wages and benefits, typical 

employment settings, comparable interaction 

with employees and others without disabilities, 

and equal opportunities for advancement.124

Oregon has interpreted this definition, at least 

for customized employment, to exclude, as 

not meeting the typicality requirement, work 

settings that are created to hire people with 

disabilities, comply with a mandated direct 

labor-hour ratio of people with disabilities, are 

identified by other government agencies as 

sheltered workshops, or are group or enclave 

settings operated for the purpose of employing 

people with disabilities.125 The federal WIOA 

definition of competitive integrated employment 

provides a presumption that such contracts are 

not integrated, but allows for an individualized 

determination of whether an employment 

setting is, in fact, integrated.126

Stakeholders noted that the definition of a 

“typical” employment setting is not satisfied 

merely by the provision of competitive wages 

and highlighted that assessing the integration, 

opportunities for advancement, and access to 

equal benefits of some placements requires 

greater judgment than a mere paperwork 

exercise can provide.127 In addition, as more 

people with disabilities begin to benefit from 

customized employment, affirmative action 

hiring programs by employers (including 

those mandated by Sections 501 and 503 of 

the Rehabilitation Act) and greater employerprovided, rather than government-funded, 

accommodations, it will be important to 

“The state has been asking providers to play 

basketball and now it’s asking them to play 

baseball. The state now needs to set the 

new rules and give the providers new tools.”

88 National Council on Disability
ensure that such innovative programs are not 

unintentionally excluded from state definitions.

One element of Oregon’s rules that 

complicates some providers’ ability to transform 

all their programs is the continued requirements 

of state (QRF) and federal (AbilityOne) contract 

preference programs. These preference 

programs require 75 percent of direct labor hours 

organization-wide to be performed by people 

with disabilities.128 This requirement is legally 

inconsistent with the state and WIOA definition 

of competitive integrated employment. In 

addition, many state-use contracts are reportedly 

difficult or impossible to satisfy through current 

models without paying subminimum wage.129

Moreover, in many states, a subminimum wage 

certificate is required to qualify for state setaside contracts. MV Advancements has given up 

most of its QRF contracts. However, TVW has 

continued to operate a government contract for 

janitorial services, which is competitive, both in 

terms of wages and hiring/selection/retention, 

and in settings comparable to other janitorial jobs 

(services provided during the day, interactions 

with nondisabled customers, individual positions). 

TVW sees this program as valuable to many 

populations of people with disabilities, including 

people with serious mental illness, and sees it 

as a form of competitive integrated employment 

that should be permitted as long as the roles of 

service provider and employer are separated. 

Therefore, TVW has been careful to avoid 

acting as the government-funded employment 

services provider for the workers while also 

being the workers’ employer. TVW emphasized 

that this separation of roles is essential in order 

to avoid conflicts of interest for the employer/

provider. Instead, TVW’s janitorial supervisors are 

trained to provide accommodations, including 

job coaching, as part of their supervision 

responsibilities (without government fees). 

If additional coaching or supports are needed, 

TVW will bring in an unrelated outside supported 

employment provider to provide those services.

Many stakeholders raised the need for 

increased quality assurance efforts to ensure that 

the state’s expectations regarding outcomes are 

being achieved.130 Particularly with regard to the 

integration requirements of typicality, comparable 

interaction with people without disabilities, and 

equal opportunities for advancement, those 

factors often cannot be assessed with a standard 

black-or-white approach. Assessing those factors 

will require state monitoring through site visits 

and interviews.

Washington

Purpose of Visit

Washington was chosen because it has been 

implementing supported employment for 

people with I/DD for decades, including since 

2004 by official policy and since 2012 by state 

law.131 In 2010, Washington committed itself to 

doubling the number of people with I/DD 

working by 2015.132 Washington is widely 

recognized as a national leader in competitive 

integrated employment for people with I/DD.133

Washington’s efforts have borne fruit, as more 

people with I/DD entered competitive integrated 

jobs than in any other state, even during a 

nationwide recession.134 As depicted in Table 9, 

Washington’s statewide integrated employment 

outcomes nearly doubled over a decade, 

increasing from 281 in 2004 to 510 in 2016. This 

has been accompanied by a reduction in the 

number of Washington entities holding FLSA 

14(c) certificates from 35 in 2015 to 12 in 2017 

and a reduction in the number of people with 

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 89
disabilities working for subminimum wages from 

2,030 in 2015 to 792 in 2017.135

Washington data shows that the transition 

from sheltered workshops to competitive 

integrated employment has provided a much 

better return on investment of Developmental 

Disability Agency services than sheltered work. 

The earnings achieved per services dollar spent 

for competitive integrated employment has 

ranged from over two to four times the return on 

investment of sheltered work.136

Summary of Activities

NCD met with the Director of Morningside 

Services in Olympia, Washington, on the 

afternoon of July 31, 2018. Morningside137 is a 

former sheltered workshop that transitioned 

early to solely providing services in competitive 

integrated employment. Morningside 

transitioned 120 people with I/DD out of its 

sheltered workshop between 2000 and 2004. 

Approximately half of the people went into 

competitive integrated employment, half 

into small groups consisting of 4–8 workers, 

while some people retired or moved to day 

services. Between 2004 and 2015, Morningside 

phased out its group employment and, in 2015, 

eliminated subminimum wages. Morningside 

now serves approximately 900 people annually in 

several counties, including placing approximately 

200–300 people in competitive integrated 

employment annually. Morningside found that 

not having to comply with the administrative 

requirements of FLSA Section 14(c) saved them 

a good deal of time and money. Its clients also 

have expressed a greater sense of pride and 

accomplishment from working in integrated jobs 

and receiving a paycheck like everyone else.

On August 1, 2018, NCD met with 

supported employees and their employment 

services provider, Able Opportunities, Inc.,138

at Harrison Medical Center in Bremerton, 

Washington,139 followed by a longer meeting 

with Able Opportunities’ Chief Executive 

Officer. Able Opportunities is an employment 

services provider that has never provided 

sheltered workshop services. Through its Work 

Independence Network (WIN) it partners with 

Morningside

Budget — $5,999,207

2004:

■ One hundred and twenty people in 

workshop

Now:

■ Nine hundred and nine people served; two 

hundred and forty-five placements in 2016

■ No small group

■ Workshop closed in 2004

Table 9: Integrated Employment Outcomes

2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

Integrated 

employment 

closures

281 283 375 325 440 380 365 405 401 403 443 493 510

90 National Council on Disability
Able Opportunities

■ No small group

■ Average wage = $14.25

■ Average hours = 58/month

“With the Work Autonomy App, the job coach 

can go away!”

employers to place and support people with 

I/DD in individual competitive integrated jobs. 

Through its partnership with Harrison Medical 

Center, it has placed and supported 29 people 

with I/DD in 17 Medical Center departments. 

Able Opportunities also develops and markets 

technology tools to serve the support and 

supervision needs of both employees with 

disabilities and their employers, which allows 

job coaches to fade more quickly. NCD met with 

several supported employees, each of whom 

had progressed in their responsibilities and 

independent job skills since their initial hiring, 

and many of whom had long tenures at the 

hospital. Some clients currently working through 

the WIN program had previously been deemed 

unemployable by school, VR, and other CRP 

agencies but were now thriving in competitive 

integrated employment.

The tour was led by a Harrison Medical Center 

employee supported by WIN. He has worked at 

the hospital since 2008 and makes $15.35/hour, 

$415/month. He began the tour by showing us 

the Work Autonomy App on his iPad, a personcentered accommodation tool developed by 

Able Opportunities. The Work Autonomy App 

is a highly customizable interface with five 

core features: Communication, Track Schedule, 

Track Expectations, Track Production, and Track 

Earnings. This employee sanitizes and stocks 

ICU treatment trays. Each tray contains over 

300 pieces of medical equipment that must be 

intricately placed in a specific order. Using the 

app to both remind him of the job’s various steps 

and to memorialize the progress he makes, he 

can complete a tray in under 12 minutes, allowing 

the medical staff to provide more hours of direct 

patient care.

NCD met with four employees who work as 

Nursing Floor Clerks in different departments of 

the hospital, sanitizing nurse servers, stocking 

medical supplies, and responding to nurses’ 

requests as they arise for $15.35 per hour. 

Given the sometimes unpredictable needs of 

the nurses, one of these employees reported 

that she is often asked to do tasks that are 

not directly in her job description or already 

accounted for in her Work Autonomy app. This left 

gaps in her weekly productivity chart despite the 

fact that she was actively working. She worked 

with Able Opportunities to create a task in her 

schedule titled “Arbitrary” so she can now start 

the timer on “Arbitrary” whenever she is doing 

a work-related task not in her job description. 

Its adaptability allowed her to modify the app’s 

features to meet her needs on the job. Another 

Nursing Floor Clerk with disabilities works in the 

hospital’s Oncology Wing where, in addition to 

her other duties, she offers and delivers drinks 

and care items to patients. She was the first 

supported employee to provide direct patient 

care. She participated in a series of staff training 

sessions to learn to support grieving families 

and expanded her job description to include 

offering and delivering care items to patients. 

Last, we met with two supported employees 

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 91
who were participating in a 10-week Work 

Ethics course, which teaches Harrison policies, 

professionalism, HIPAA compliance, safety 

protocols, and self-advocacy.

After the site visit NCD met with the CEO 

of Able Opportunities to learn more about the 

WIN program and using technology as a tool 

for supported employment. Able Opportunities 

trains all its employment specialists in the use of 

iPads, video editing, and accommodation apps. 

Along with the Work Autonomy app, job coaches 

use tools like video resumes to give supported 

employees autonomy to represent themselves 

during job interviews. Video resumes use a short 

video to show the components of a resume, 

such as skills, work history, and education. One 

supported employment specialist mentioned 

that technology like this was not taught to her in 

school and that she rarely saw it being used by 

her peers in the field.

On August 2, 2108, NCD traveled to Chinook 

Enterprises140 in Mount Vernon, Washington, 

approximately 60 miles north of Seattle in a 

rural part of the state, where we met with the 

supported employment director and toured 

the former sheltered workshop. As of the end 

of June 2018, Chinook has transitioned its 

workshop to a fully integrated business working 

on assembly contracts for Boeing. Chinook also 

provides placement and supported employment 

services in competitive integrated employment 

for approximately 180 people outside its facility, 

including 31 new placements per year. Chinook 

is also helping several people with disabilities 

pursue self-employment and operating several 

group employment programs.

That same afternoon, NCD traveled to the 

Lighthouse for the Blind141 in Seattle, where it 

met with the employment team and toured the 

facilities. Lighthouse is a provider of facility-based 

work and, although it now pays at least minimum 

wage, it is not integrated and has not engaged 

in transformation of its service system. The 

purpose of this visit was to explore how services 

through the traditional sheltered workshop 

model, supported by AbilityOne and state-use 

contracts, continue despite the growth of the 

newer supported employment model mandated 

by state and federal VR and Medicaid programs. 

NCD met with two employees with disabilities, 

one of whom is deaf-blind and one of whom is 

blind. The deaf-blind individual discussed how 

some of his deaf-blind colleagues had worked 

in competitive integrated employment but had 

returned to the Lighthouse because the support 

services, including deaf-blind interpretation 

services, were inadequate in quality or quantity, 

or both. This led to isolation and reduced 

productivity, prompting them to return to the 

Chinook Enterprises

Budget — $5.3 million 5 years ago

■ Eighteen people in sheltered workshop

Now

■ One hundred and eighty people in CIE

■ Thirty-one job placements per year

● Average wage = $14.07

● Average hours = 43/month

“You know, it just comes naturally to me.”

92 National Council on Disability
Lighthouse for the Blind

■ Facility-based employment at three 

facilities plus military bases and 

government office operations

■ Four hundred and seventy-six employees,

● Two hundred and sixty of whom are 

blind, deaf, or deaf-blind

● Gave up FLSA 14(c) certificate

● Seventy-five percent of direct labor hours 

organization-wide provided by workers 

with disabilities pursuant to AbilityOne 

contract requirements

Lighthouse for quality communication services 

and accommodations, while still maintaining a 

competitive wage. The employment staff at the 

Lighthouse confirmed this experience and noted 

that the availability of high-quality deaf-blind and 

deaf interpreter services was a serious stumbling 

block to competitive integrated employment. 

Even if the former workplace met the definition 

of competitive integrated employment, deaf-blind 

employees were not truly integrated with their 

colleagues because of the lack of interpreter 

services, the lack of Braille materials, and the 

lack of understanding of deaf-blindness among 

nondisabled staff. The Lighthouse staff agreed 

that their interpreter and other services could be 

portable but found that the state was not willing 

to pay for sufficient hours of such high-quality 

services. Unlike many sheltered workshops, 

the Lighthouse has invested in modern 

manufacturing equipment, which it has modified 

to provide large-print output, tactile buttons, and 

Braille instructions. They reported that, although 

their workers with disabilities learned marketable 

skills through the Lighthouse, the Lighthouse did 

not provide job placement services or support 

services in competitive integrated employment 

for employees outside Lighthouse facilities.

NCD then met with a self-advocate and 

then with a variety of stakeholders, including 

advocates, people with disabilities, family 

representatives from the state DD Agency, 

Protection and Advocacy (P&A) lawyers, and 

service providers in Seattle on August 3, 

2018. Stakeholders noted that they were all 

in agreement about the desired outcome but 

disagreed about the timing for completing 

systems changes. They also found that placing 

people with disabilities in competitive integrated 

employment had ripple effects for the employers 

and coworkers—increasing their understanding 

of disability and increasing their willingness to 

be inclusive of more employees with disabilities. 

Many stakeholders noted that too many former 

sheltered workshop providers were still not 

transitioning to supporting people in competitive 

integrated employment and, some of those 

that had transitioned were still using the old 

approaches in the new model, such as by 

having job coaches do much of the work, and 

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 93
continuing job coaching without encouraging 

natural supports or fading of paid supports. 

They believed the state should stop investing 

in those providers and focus on investing in 

new integrated providers, expanding capacity of 

existing integrated providers, increasing benefits 

counseling to help people with disabilities 

understand the benefits of competitive integrated 

work, and investing in technology and new 

ways of providing services. They also expressed 

that the expertise people with disabilities, 

themselves, have regarding employment of 

themselves and others with disabilities is not 

supported through entrepreneurship. Rather, it is 

sought out on a volunteer basis, thus continuing 

the cycle of potential 

exploitation.

Observations

Service providers in 

Washington have been 

engaged in providing 

supports in competitive 

integrated employment 

for a long time. In fact, Washington along with 

Oregon led the country in developing early 

supported employment techniques. Oregon 

was funded in the 1980s with a Medicaid 

Infrastructure Grant at the University of Oregon 

to implement and provide technical guidance on 

supported employment. Likewise, Washington 

received an RSA federal systems change grant 

from 1986–1991 that supported it to become 

a leader in technical guidance on the issue 

including through WISE. Nevertheless, the 

process of transformation in Washington took 

longer than it has in recent years in Oregon, in 

part because state bridge funding was not made 

available. In fact, workshops that transitioned 

early found that government agencies did not 

know how to support providers of supported 

employment, so the providers had to make 

their own roadmaps. For service providers in 

Washington, the transition from workshops to 

individual jobs was motivated as much by the 

demands of their clients with disabilities as by 

government pressure. For example, Morningside 

Services, at the time that it was still a workshop, 

participated in a research survey of its clients 

conducted by Professor David Mank, then of the 

University of Oregon’s MIG funded program. The 

survey found that 80 percent of Morningside’s 

sheltered employees preferred integrated 

employment. According to Morningside’s 

executive director, the 

decision was then made 

that the workshop 

needed to transform in 

order to meet its clients’ 

demands. Similarly, 

providers reported 

that, when asked and 

offered other options, 

their clients did not choose group employment, 

further moving providers to focus on providing 

services in competitive integrated employment. 

Many noted that transformation success did not 

depend on size, but on values and training. Some 

also noted that, once placed in the community, 

“The people we see in workshops in other 

states—we would’ve placed those people 

[in competitive integrated employment]. 

The workshops [in other states] would’ve 

placed our sheltered workers in day services/

unemployment.”

For service providers in Washington, 

the transition from workshops 

to individual jobs was motivated 

as much by the demands of their 

clients with disabilities as by 

government pressure

94 National Council on Disability
their clients with disabilities expressed no desire 

to return to a workshop and their behavior 

problems were substantially reduced.

Because Washington state providers have 

been providing supports in competitive integrated 

employment for decades, they maintain that the 

workers who are considered to have the most 

significant disabilities in workshops in other 

states would easily be served in competitive 

integrated employment in Washington. They 

maintain that the people currently served 

in workshops would have been considered 

unemployable and relegated to nonemployment 

day services in other states. The assumptions 

about who is 

competitively employable 

have clearly changed 

in Washington in ways 

other states have not yet 

achieved. Nonetheless, 

because of limits on 

government funding, 

and Washington’s lack of 

funding support for day 

services, some providers 

worry that the relatively 

few people with very significant disabilities who 

need the most supports may be left out.

NCD interviewed providers who believed 

that integration in employment is as important 

as wages because integrated employment is 

the primary way people with disabilities build 

the networks of friendships, supports, and 

opportunities in the community that allow them 

to be fully included in all aspects of life. Merely 

raising wages in sheltered work, they maintained, 

would not support those effects. Providers in 

Washington took different approaches to closing 

the front door to sheltered workshops for new 

entrants. Some workshops who transitioned 

early did not close the front door until they were 

near closing. Others found that this motivated 

families and people with disabilities to know early 

that the workshop would be closing and that new 

entrants would be served in community-based 

employment rather than workshop services.

Key Success Factors

Providers in Washington, like Oregon, found that 

the keys to succeeding in rebalancing supported 

employment services were values and training. 

They agreed that these factors made the 

difference between sheltered workshop staff 

who could transition 

to providing integrated 

employment services 

and those who could 

not. Providers also noted 

that support for selfadvocacy among people 

with disabilities can 

significantly speed and 

improve transition from 

sheltered to competitive 

integrated employment, 

both at the statewide and provider levels.

... integration in employment 

as important as wages because 

integrated employment is the 

primary way people with disabilities 

build the networks of friendships, 

supports, and opportunities in the 

community that allow them to be 

fully included in all aspects of life

“The secret sauce in motivating supported 

employment staff is to praise, thank, and 

encourage staff and help them support each 

other.”

“You have to run the service organization 

like a business, if someone says they can’t 

it means they don’t know how to run a 

business.”

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 95
The most successful Washington providers, 

as in Oregon and places we visited across the 

Northeast, ran their organizations as a business, 

rather than as a social work endeavor. One 

noted that it is more profitable now than it 

was when it operated a sheltered workshop 

because it operates more efficiently and smarter. 

This provider found that appropriate staffing 

ratios, sufficient caseloads, placement and 

billable goals for staff, and teaching staff not to 

spend more time than necessary were keys to 

ensuring success both for the provider and the 

person with a disability. They also have goals for 

fading142 of paid supports. Some providers are 

also considering exploring more diverse sources 

of funding, including fund-raising, which they 

had not needed before. Some were operating 

(integrated) commercial enterprises and using 

profits to support transition. However, at least 

one provider maintained that, after the bridge 

period, such commercial income is not necessary 

and may create other problems. Some providers 

found they overestimated the amount of bridge 

funding they would need during transformation 

and that it was more manageable than they 

had predicted.

Washington supported employment providers 

agreed that employers in a wide variety of 

businesses with a wide variety of jobs hired 

people with disabilities. Some went directly 

from school, others from the workshops, and 

still others from interim group settings. Again, 

whether employers who were workshop 

customers would hire employees from the 

workshop varied. Some willingly brought on 

former workshop participants as employees. 

Some workshop customers agreed to employ 

people with disabilities through contracts with 

the providers acting as the employer, because 

of union rules or limits on authorized full-time 

employee (FTE) slots. Some of this depended 

on whether the industry needed workers; the 

current growing economy and low unemployment 

rate provides a prime opportunity to place people 

with disabilities. Providers frequently noted the 

importance of developing and cultivating strong 

relationships with local businesses, industry 

groups, and chambers of commerce, and that 

highlighting the success of one employer at hiring 

qualified supported employees regularly led other 

employers to ask to follow suit.

Providers also noted that documenting their 

experiences over the last decade has allowed 

them to show how, above and beyond any 

effects on workplace culture and morale, hiring 

people with disabilities and assigning them 

jobs for which they are qualified consistently 

and predictably makes other employees more 

efficient and effective and saves the employer 

money. They also noted that they often have 

their job seekers with disabilities interview 

and compete for the jobs, which generates 

buy-in by the employer. Able Opportunities has 

shifted traditional services both through using 

technology and by taking a business-catered 

approach to job development. Able Opportunities 

“Service providers have two clients: 

the employee and the employer. We are 

providing a place with the skills and support 

needed to find employment, and employers 

with access to a talented pool of individuals 

that meet their business needs.”

96 National Council on Disability
“It’s time to break the myth of the man.”

“People leaving the workshop at first missed 

their friends, so they started a recreation club 

so they could see each other socially.”

“Integrated employment is the bedrock of 

integration generally.“

uses strategic financial modeling to showcase 

to potential employers the financial benefits of 

hiring employees with I/DD to fill the company’s 

unmet needs. This allows businesses to see the 

direct monetary benefits of hiring an employee 

with I/DD.

The use of technology to provide innovative 

accommodations allows people with I/DD 

to compete in a modernized job market and 

can be a relatively low-cost way to offer 

innovative individualized accommodations. Able 

Opportunities invested $22,000 in 26 iPads, 

software, insurance, and adaptive gear. iPads 

were chosen because of built-in accessibility 

features that make it easier for users with 

visual, auditory, motor, or other physical 

disabilities, and their ability to be individualized 

through apps and adaptive gear. In addition, 

instead of carrying a specialized device that 

addresses one area of need, people with 

disabilities are using the same tool as their 

colleagues, increasing natural supports across 

numerous environments. Moreover, technology 

allows job coaching and other in-person 

services to fade more quickly and yet still be 

available on an as-needed basis and reduces 

transportation barriers.

Obstacles and Solutions

Washington providers no longer face much, if 

any, opposition to transformation efforts from 

people with disabilities or their families. However, 

given the lack of state support for non-work day 

activities, some providers worried about what 

their program participants would do during nonwork hours. In addition, integrated employers, 

particularly at Washington’s increasing minimum 

wage, have higher expectations than sheltered 

workshops; preparing sheltered workers to meet 

those expectations takes effort.

Washington providers have been focusing on 

supporting people with disabilities in integrated 

self-employment. However, they reported that 

the state’s support for such entrepreneurship 

was limited, possibly because of difficulties with 

quality assurance and ensuring that the person 

with a disability is really doing the work and 

reaping the benefits. Providers have accessed 

volunteer resources, such as SBA’s Service 

Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE), to assist 

in setting up businesses. However, their clients 

encounter major barriers to accessing many 

government programs designed to support 

nondisabled entrepreneurs.

The Lighthouse’s operation continues to 

be facility-based and not integrated and relies 

primarily on contract income to support its 

employees, who are blind, deaf, or deaf-blind. 

They have diversified their contracts to ensure 

that a downturn in one source of income 

would not undermine the whole business. This 

diversification, as well as the cross-training of 

their staff and workers with disabilities, gave 

them the flexibility to stop paying subminimum 

wages across the board. As Washington 

Disability Services Boards are no longer referring 

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 97
people with disabilities to segregated settings, 

the Lighthouse has had some trouble finding 

qualified blind employees in recent years. 

Lighthouse has given up acting as both service 

provider and employer. It now focuses on its 

role as an employer who provides supportive 

services as reasonable accommodations. These 

accommodations for people who are blind, deaf, 

or deaf-blind, such as orientation and mobility, 

communication accessibility (e.g., Braille), and 

interpretation (including tactile interpretation), 

are not commonly understood by mainstream 

employers. Therefore, some of their workers 

(particularly workers who are deaf-blind) have 

returned to the Lighthouse because of poor 

services and resulting isolation from their 

colleagues. Lighthouse is beginning to explore 

providing more community-based support 

services for other employers and employment 

service providers and for Lighthouse employees 

that desire to move to competitive integrated 

employment. They expressed interest in 

supporting workers to work where they want, 

including in competitive integrated employment, 

and are interested in ways to help make 

the Lighthouse’s employment supports and 

expertise (including adapted equipment, qualified 

interpretation, and communication access) more 

transportable into the community.

As in other states, transportation is a barrier 

for both people with disabilities and supported 

employment service providers, particularly in 

more rural areas.

Shared Expectations

Because Washington state is further along 

on its journey to prioritize competitive 

integrated employment, the providers and 

government-funding agencies have greater 

shared understanding of the meanings of the 

expected outcomes. All appeared to agree that a 

competitive integrated job is one that is designed 

to be profit making, not merely rehabilitative; 

intended to get a job done for the employer, not 

a special disability–specific program; and that 

one entity cannot be both the service provider 

and the employer for a person. Disagreements 

focus on whether integrated administrative 

and management offices within segregated 

organizations should be considered integrated 

and how the state government can better support 

self-employment for people with disabilities while 

maintaining adequate oversight.

State-use contract preferences are used little, 

if at all, in Washington state, so the conflicts 

among state policies regarding integrated and 

segregated employment are not a significant 

factor here. However, AbilityOne contracts 

are carried out in Washington, creating an 

inherent tension between those providers 

that can fulfill AbilityOne contracts and meet 

the 75 percent direct labor ratio requirements, 

and those that can be considered successful 

state VR placements under Title IV of WIOA or 

supported by state Developmental Disabilities 

Administration funding.

98 National Council on Disability
Chapter 6: Recommendations for Federal Agencies, 

Congress, and the President

During NCD’s 2018 interviews and 

travels, it became clear that a five-point 

consensus is emerging with regard to 

disability employment:

1. conducting business as usual in the 14(c) 

program is neither desirable nor any longer 

viable, given changes in other laws, new 

demand from people with disabilities to 

work in competitive integrated employment, 

and increasing automation and diminished 

supplier contracts;

2. effective support strategies, techniques, 

and technologies exist now for people with 

disabilities to be included, and thrive, in the 

economic mainstream;

3. workers with disabilities in 14(c) programs 

will not be fully supported to transition to 

mainstream jobs if the intended outcome of 

employment services is not clearly defined 

in American law, including by WIOA, as 

competitive jobs that are typically found in 

the community;

4. each person with a disability that can and 

wants to work in competitive integrated 

employment should be fully supported to do 

so, without delay;

5. for people with disabilities to experience full 

participation in the emerging economy, they 

must be supported as the entrepreneurs, 

inventors, and business people of the future, 

rather than simply as the clients, consumers, 

and service recipients of the past.

Phasing Out Section 14(c)

There is little doubt that this report comes at a 

crucial moment in labor history and the history 

of the civil rights of people with disabilities in 

the United States. While for the better part 

of 80 years, people with disabilities in 14(c) 

employment have been paid far less for their 

work than most other Americans, and separated 

from nondisabled peers, in mostly manual, 

sometimes menial jobs, the tide is now turning—

in fact, dramatically so. The vast majority of 

stakeholders NCD interviewed are simply waiting 

for the design of public employment service 

systems to catch up to their accelerated demand 

for competitive integrated employment.

For example, students with disabilities 

across the country are coming of age with 

the highest expectations of themselves and 

others, and they can and want to work in typical 

jobs. School transition programs like Project 

Search and Seamless Transition and others are 

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 99
demonstrating the effectiveness of work-based 

learning experiences and linking students in 

high school with paid employment before they 

leave school. Families and parent organizations 

are working to develop communities of support 

and peer-to-peer mentoring so adults who have 

worked in sheltered workshops, sometimes 

for decades, become familiar with real-world 

examples of peers working in competitive 

integrated employment, can ask questions, and 

can glean assistance and support in making 

informed choices about competitive integrated 

employment.

Mainstream companies are now engaged 

in cutting-edge disability recruitment, hiring, 

and on-boarding strategies, not as charity or 

marketing, but because it serves their bottom 

line. In the words of the executive director of 

the Marriott Foundation’s Bridges from School to 

Work program, “there’s now a war for talent,” and 

workers with disabilities bring strategic advantage 

to any employer’s position in that war, including 

by increasing job retention, introducing new 

efficiencies, and increasing and widening diversity.

Meanwhile, American law has shifted in 

significant ways, including through the ADA, 

Olmstead v. L.C., and WIOA. Yet, in nearly 

perfect contradiction, other laws have aged 

in place, including two vestiges of the New 

Deal era: Section 14(c) of FLSA, and the JavitsWagner-O’Day Act (also known as AbilityOne). 

Indisputably, Section 14(c) and JWOD have failed 

to keep pace with the dramatic changes that 

have rippled through American life due to civil 

rights enforcement, the deinstitutionalization 

movement, increased access to education and 

training, and the exponential growth of new 

technologies. As this report has chronicled, it 

is the overwhelming consensus of a diverse 

range of stakeholders that these New Deal 

laws are barriers to the kind of modernization 

of employment service systems that is vitally 

necessary for more people with disabilities 

to leave sheltered workshops, transition to 

competitive integrated employment, and access 

opportunities in the 21st-century economy.

In NCD’s view, we cannot make people with 

disabilities wait for these calcified laws, and 

corresponding systems, to change before we 

support those who can and want to work in the 

mainstream economy to do so. Yet, we also know 

that many people with disabilities will be unable 

to enter the mainstream of American life unless 

and until they are changed. We need to do both, 

at once. Indeed, the pronounced commitments 

of federal, state, and local governments and the 

private sector are now necessary for competitive 

integrated employment to become a reality 

for the approximately 321,131 people with 

disabilities who are currently employed by 14(c) 

certificate-holders.143

Recommendation A1: NCD renews its 

call from 6 years ago for a phase-out of 

the 80-year-old 14(c) program and the 

concomitant phase-up of the systems changes 

necessary to allow people with disabilities 

to move into competitive integrated 

employment. Congress should amend Section 

14(c) of FLSA to require a 6-year phase out of 

subminimum and subprevailing wages.

Recommendation A2(a): NCD recommends 

the Secretary of Labor should impose an 

18-month to 2-year moratorium on the 

issuance of new 14(c) certificates, including 

on the SWEP, CRP, BEL, and PWL lists. Current 

certificates and the renewal of certificates 

would not be impacted by this moratorium.

100 National Council on Disability
As discussed in this report and in NCD’s 2018 

report Has the Promise Been Kept? Federal 

Enforcement of Disability Rights Laws, there is 

ample evidence that WHD exercises minimally 

effective oversight and control over existing 

14(c) certificates and therefore a moratorium is 

necessary, as among other things:

1. WHD has incomplete knowledge of the 

total census of workers employed by 14(c) 

certificate-holders; in one month, it cited 

wildly varied estimates of this number 

to NCD and to Congress, ranging from 

141,081144 to 321,131 employees.145 It 

also does not maintain data about the 

total number of AbilityOne programs 

that are also certificate-holders, even 

though AbilityOne participating programs 

make up a considerable portion of the 

top CRP certificate-holders by number of 

subminimum wage workers nationwide.

2. While in recent years it has engaged in 

more directed enforcement actions than 

in the past, WHD’s overall enforcement of 

the program pales in comparison to the 

program’s size. In July 2018, WHD provided 

Congress with data that demonstrate that 

there is a high prevalence of violations, 

if and when it does engage in strategic 

enforcement within the program, yet its 

oversight activities have impacted less 

than 2 percent of all workers in the 14(c) 

program.146

3. The 14(c) certificate applications reviewed 

in connection with this report at times 

appeared to show time studies that were 

not conducted adequately, that were applied 

inconsistently, or that were incomplete. 

Moreover, some applications showed wages 

so low as to be of de minimis economic 

value. For example, wages as low as 7 cents 

for performing a work task called “pinatas” 

in an institution.

4. WHD, along with other federal agencies, 

has failed to coordinate adequate or 

effective enforcement efforts with the 

EEOC and DOJ to ensure that 14(c) 

employees are provided reasonable 

accommodations, calling into question 

whether workers are properly classified in 

the program. Nor has WHD exercised its 

own enforcement efforts to ensure that 

certificate-holders that have failed to renew 

their 14(c) applications are not continuing to 

pay subminimum wages.

In connection with this report, we reviewed 

evidence sufficient to convince us that after 

80 years, a program so desperately in need of 

modernization and run with ineffective oversight 

controls, cannot continue its business as usual, 

given the potential for a high gravity of harm and 

economic exploitation.

Recommendation A2(b): NCD recommends 

within 90 days of this report, the Secretary 

of Labor should convene an interagency 

panel, comprised of all relevant agency 

representatives, to develop and implement 

a detailed phase-out plan that utilizes a 

systems change approach as outlined in the 

recommendations section of this report, 

including viable measures to provide people 

with disabilities and their families information 

and experiences that will allow them to 

make informed choices about employment as 

transformation takes place.

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 101
In addition, students with disabilities are often 

tracked toward sheltered workshops through 

school transition programs that prepare, train, 

and acculturate them to perform sheltered 

workshop tasks and that do not train them 

in skills that are generalizable to competitive 

integrated employment.147 Even though, with 

the 2014 enactment of WIOA, schools have now 

been prohibited from contracting with sheltered 

workshops to provide transition services, the 

WHD continues to license school programs 

and school districts to hold 14(c) certificates for 

school-operated sheltered workshops. WHD 

could point to no efforts to conduct strategic or 

directed enforcement activities of the remaining 

SWEP certificate-holders to identify whether 

they were in compliance with FLSA and WIOA. 

Moreover, we are unaware of any efforts by DOJ 

to enforce the ADA and Olmstead v. L.C. in this 

context.

Recommendation A3(a): NCD recommends 

that the Secretary of Labor take appropriate 

steps to revoke all remaining SWEP 

certificates. Given the high potential gravity 

of harm to students, the overall lack of 

enforcement, and the inconsistency of SWEPs 

with the requirements of WIOA and the ADA.

Recommendation A3(b): In the meantime, 

NCD recommends that WHD take immediate 

steps to engage in directed investigations of 

the remaining SWEP certificate-holders to 

determine compliance with WIOA.

Recommendation A4: NCD recommends 

Congress should require DOL to report 

to Congress within 180 days on the total 

census of workers with disabilities receiving 

subminimum wages under 14(c).

Recommendation A5: NCD recommends, 

as discussed in our report Has the Promise 

Been Kept?: Federal Enforcement of Disability 

Rights Laws, until such time as the six-year 

phase out takes effect, that WHD improve its 

oversight, enforcement, and data collection 

regarding 14(c) certificate-holders and their 

employees with disabilities, including:

■ WHD should issue a public report on the 

industry classification or NAICS codes of 

jobs performed by 14(c) workers.

■ The 14(c) certificate application should be 

updated to require employers to report the 

number of workers with disabilities, for the 

prior reporting period, who have transitioned 

from 14(c) employment to competitive 

integrated employment and the industry 

classification codes for such workers’ new 

positions.

■ WHD should report in its publicly available 

certificate data, the total number of 

14(c) providers that are also AbilityOne 

providers.

■ WHD should collect as part of all 14(c) 

certificate applications and/or renewal 

applications the total number of employees 

with disabilities employed by the 14(c) 

certificate-holder at or above minimum 

wage, and the total number of 14(c) 

employees who have been transitioned 

off of special minimum wages in the last 

reporting period but who continue to receive 

services from the provider.

■ WHD should collect and systematically track 

how many 14(c) certificates have expired, 

and the reasons for the expiration and the 

nonrenewal of the certificate.

102 National Council on Disability
Recommendation A6: NCD recommends 

that Congress, concurrent with changes to 

Section 14(c), amend the Javits-Wagner-O’Day 

Act to support the employment of people 

with disabilities in competitive integrated 

employment, as defined by WIOA.

Recognizing the great extent to which 

the JWOD program interrelates with the 

continued existence of the 14(c) program, it is 

unquestionable that JWOD must be revised 

and overhauled, including by: changing the 

definitions that control qualification for the 

program, expressly prohibiting service providers 

from acting simultaneously as employers, and 

reconfiguring the program to support people 

with disabilities to engage in new industries 

of the future. As the service providers that we 

visited sought to expand their services and 

diversify funding sources in order to transition 

to providing supported employment, they found 

that compliance with new employment service 

models foreclosed their participation in older 

models such as JWOD and state-use systems. 

These models’ direct labor ratio requirements 

directly conflict with competitive integrated 

employment and, by excluding services in 

competitive integrated employment, make 

it harder for workshops to transition without 

losing funding sources. Those older programs 

also send mixed messages about government 

commitment and expectations. All government 

programs supporting segregated employment for 

people with disabilities should be changed to be 

consistent with the new models the government 

has committed to.

Recommendation A7: NCD recommends 

the National Governor’s Association (NGA) 

to formulate and disseminate model state 

legislation to eliminate state disability-based 

exemptions to the minimum wage.

Building on Systems Changes Spurred 

by WIOA, ADA, Medicaid, and Social 

Security Reforms

At the same time that subminimum wages 

are being phased out, systems changes that 

are occurring as a result of WIOA, the ADA, 

and Medicaid and Social Security reforms 

should be expanded and built upon to increase 

capacity for integrated service models, enhance 

the availability of TA resources, increase the 

number of qualified and trained staff, strengthen 

and support peer-to-peer networks and family 

supports, increase benefits counseling resources, 

improve school transition and access to higher 

education, implement business engagement 

strategies, and introduce and develop new 

resources and innovations to allow people with 

disabilities to access the jobs of the 21st century.

Recommendation B1: NCD recommends to 

the Department of Education, including the 

Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation 

Services, that the WIOA regulations—and 

specifically the definition of competitive 

integrated employment—not be reopened 

for public comment or amendment, because 

the consensus of the disability, business, and 

employment service provider communities 

is that the current regulations are of 

vital importance to the modernization of 

employment service systems and efforts to 

on-board people with disabilities into jobs in 

the economic mainstream.

In the course of formulating this report, NCD’s 

team engaged in numerous conversations and 

extensive travels, contacting over 160 people in 

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 103
26 states, and visiting six states in person during 

July 2018. We spoke with people with disabilities 

and their families as well as employers, 

advocates, supported employment service 

providers, direct support staff, mainstream 

industry representatives, employer associations, 

national and local SME, university centers for 

excellence, TA centers, sheltered workshops and 

their employees, institutions, federal and state 

agencies, P&A organizations, entrepreneurs, 

and foundations, and asked nearly all of them 

about WIOA’s definition of competitive integrated 

employment.

We consistently heard that people with 

disabilities are tired of being relegated to work 

in artificial settings for employers that are also 

their service providers. In the view of many, 

such a setup often ensures different pay, 

benefits, opportunities for advancement, levels 

of accommodation, and even break rooms 

and bathrooms, from nondisabled peers and 

staff. Professional literature reveals that lack of 

typicality leads to reduced wages and social 

interaction outcomes in the long run.vi Working 

in jobs without corresponding typical features of 

employment (i.e., standard wages, job acquisition 

processes, compensation structures, work 

roles, employee orientation and on-boarding 

procedures, etc.), even if they are physically 

located in mainstream settings, suppresses 

wages and opportunities for advancement. 

One job coach recounted to us what a 

supported employee declared to him when 

he had the realization that he needed to move 

from segregated employment to competitive 

integrated employment, “I could no longer afford 

to only work around people paid to be in my life.”

The VR system has defined employment 

“typically found in the community” as an 

expected outcome for more than 20 years. And 

we encountered no vocal opponents of the VR 

system continuing to do so. More poignantly, in 

visits across six states, we found no examples of 

states, agencies, or providers that successfully 

closed sheltered workshops and converted 

services to supported employment without 

having first defined expected outcomes to 

include a regular job in the community, including 

the typical features of employment. In fact, 

all of the providers we interviewed that were 

successful in modernizing their services had 

found typicality to be an essential part of the 

intended outcome of transformation. Many of 

these providers feared that eliminating what is 

“typically found in the community” from the 

definition of competitive integrated employment 

would allow VR program funds to be dedicated to 

various forms of segregation at precisely the time 

when more and more people with disabilities 

need and want those vital public funds to support 

their transition to regular jobs. As one expert 

noted, if the defined outcome is changed at 

this point, “we will lose another generation” to 

segregated subminimum wage work.

When queried about their views of this issue, 

representatives from the business community 

expressed astonishment and dismay that there 

would even be a question about what a job was, 

let alone a conversation about whether VR funds 

should be devoted to support anything other than 

a regular job. Representatives of an association 

of employers across industries noted that, at 

this time, when more and more employers 

are committing themselves to increasing their 

employment and inclusion of people with 

disabilities—often with little assistance from VR—

VR services should be targeted toward assisting 

these mainstream employers. They could not 

104 National Council on Disability
understand then why some might want the VR 

system to provide those incentives to any entity 

other than a mainstream employer in typical 

employment settings, especially when there 

is, as mentioned, an ongoing “war for talent” 

occurring in the private sector.

Finally, even service providers did not support 

the idea of repeatedly adjusting the goals and 

definitions of the employment services system. 

Based on our interviews with providers, clarity 

and stability of the rules and scoring of the 

game were at least as important as having the 

“perfect” rules and scores. Service providers can 

be flexible and creative in how they accomplish 

the goals, as long as they know what the goals 

are and how they will be assessed. Particularly in 

Oregon, where the rules and rates continue to be 

adjusted, providers sought predictability of rates 

and stable definitions of the goals. This counsels 

against changing the definitions currently in 

place under WIOA until they have been fully 

implemented and outcomes assessed for several 

years.

Building Capacity and Infrastructure 

for Supported Employment Services in 

Competitive Integrated Employment

Many of the people we interviewed 

possessed an ineffable sense that the nature 

of work for all people is changing even as we 

speak. As the world becomes more automated 

and technology-based, still more changes 

will be necessary to bridge the gap between 

unemployment and underemployment and the 

full participation of people with disabilities in the 

industries of the future. Yet, sheltered workshops 

continue to prepare people with disabilities for 

the jobs of the 19th century.

Certainly, over the past three decades, 

new innovations have pried open the door to 

employment for those who have historically been 

excluded. For example, innovations in the field of 

supported employment have demonstrated that 

people with even the most severe disabilities 

can work and succeed in competitive integrated 

employment, and in the long run, at less cost 

to the American taxpayer. In fact, supported 

employment allows such people to become 

taxpayers.

But these innovations have been out of 

reach for thousands of people with disabilities 

who can and want to work in regular jobs. 

Instead, they perform manual tasks, often using 

outdated equipment without accommodations 

in sheltered workshops because an acceptable 

outcome of public service systems continues to 

be segregation. Indeed, the lion’s share of public 

service dollars are still committed to segregated 

sheltered workshops rather than supported 

employment services provided in competitive 

integrated employment.148 And each year, people 

with I/DD, who are blind, who experience autism 

and are nonverbal, or who have other disabilities, 

are referred from school to the front door of 

sheltered workshops where they are given few, if 

any, accommodations or technologies, and once 

they enter, only approximately 5 percent of such 

workers ever leave sheltered workshops to take a 

job in the community.149

Additional federal investments are necessary 

and vital in the short term, to encourage 

states to shift funds away from segregated 

sheltered workshops and towards supported 

and customized employment services provided 

in competitive integrated employment settings. 

Congress faced a similar need in 2005 when 

it enacted the Money Follows the Person 

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 105
rebalancing demonstration to encourage states 

to shift funding from residential institutions to 

home- and community-based services. That 

approach provides an important model.

In addition, across the states that we visited, 

where systems change is in process or has 

happened, such changes often were initiated 

and supported by federally supported “systems 

change grants.” For example, by 1994, nearly 

$100 million was invested in state systems 

change grants from the U.S. Department of 

Education, a program initiated at the behest 

of the Reagan Administration’s Assistant 

Secretary of Office of Special Education and 

Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) Madeleine 

Will; an additional $10 million was invested 

by the Rehabilitation Services Administration 

for community demonstration projects for 

supported employment; and $4.5 million had 

been invested in national-scale TA projects. 

Yet, the funding for supported employment 

services and accompanying technical guidance 

to states was not sustained at this level, and as 

a result, supported employment never gained 

the financial support that it needed to rival other 

more segregated employment options. Even so, 

one can draw a straight line between these early 

federal investments, and the current examples of 

excellence in supported employment chronicled 

in this report. Additional sustained federal 

investment is now necessary and must be 

initiated concurrently with any efforts to phase 

out the 14(c) program.

Recommendation C1: NCD recommends 

that Congress, with TA from CMS, create a 

program similar to Money Follows the Person 

to provide additional financial support for 

individualized integrated services leading 

to competitive integrated employment by 

designing a community-based services waiver 

providing grants to states for individualized 

integrated services designed to transition 

people from sheltered workshops or day 

programs to Supported Employment Services 

in Competitive Integrated Employment (CIE).

Recommendation C2: NCD recommends 

that CMS grant Section 1115 research and 

demonstration funding to states to promote 

and enhance “pay for performance” and 

outcome-based strategies based on outcomes 

tied to identifying, finding, obtaining, and 

sustaining CIE. NCD recommends that 

states implement performance-based 

payment systems for supported employment 

services provided in competitive integrated 

employment.

In an interview with Opportunity Development 

Centers, Inc. (ODC) of Wisconsin, we learned 

that the provider found success in gradually 

decreasing its sheltered workshop population 

while increasing supported employment services 

because of the state’s tiered outcome-based 

funding model. States must be supported to 

pay for the outcome of competitive integrated 

employment.

Recommendation C3: NCD recommends 

that OSERS reinitiate a large-scale state 

systems change grant program dedicated to 

sustained funding over multiple years for two 

primary objectives: (1) the incubation of new 

entities in every state whose primary purpose 

is to provide supported and customized 

employment services in competitive 

integrated employment including in 21st 

century jobs; and (2) the transformation of 

106 National Council on Disability
existing facility-based employment service 

providers to phase out sheltered workshops 

and phase up supported and customized 

employment strategies provided in 

competitive integrated employment.

NCD believes it is of significant importance 

to meet both of these objectives simultaneously

over a sustained number of years to serve the 

interests of people with disabilities who can 

and want to work in competitive integrated 

employment in the near term, while modernizing 

state employment service systems over the 

longer term.

Incubating New High-Quality Supported 

Employment Providers and Methods

As it pertains to the first objective, transformation 

grant monies should be distributed to start-up 

supported employment organizations to assist 

people with disabilities to find, obtain, and 

succeed in competitive integrated employment, 

as defined by WIOA. The mission of such 

organizations should be tailored to the provision 

of high-quality supported employment services 

and customized employment services for all 

people with significant disabilities, with the 

outcome of competitive integrated employment. 

In fact, public investment in such organizations 

should be specifically tied to competitive 

integrated employment outcomes. We visited 

numerous agencies of this kind on both coasts 

that began with few resources and have been 

able to support numerous people to find 

competitive integrated employment. But such 

places need to become more the rule than the 

exception, and there need to be more of them 

to meet increased demand and the need to 

scale these critical resources. NCD recommends 

using systems change grant money to grow 

new supported providers with similar leadership, 

values-based decision making, dedication to 

person-centered planning, and the core mission 

of placing people in typical jobs as those 

supported employment providers that we visited.

Supporting Transformation of Sheltered 

Workshop Providers

As it concerns the second objective above, grant 

monies should be provided to every state to 

fund transformation bridge money and incentives 

to providers to modernize their services from 

segregated to integrated service models. Section 

14(c) certificate-holders need support to learn the 

skills necessary to implement the new model 

of supported employment services, they need 

to hire additional staff, while gradually ramping 

down the old model of segregated services, 

and they need time to diversify funding streams 

and convert fixed assets to moveable assets. 

Providers in Oregon and Rhode Island found such 

flexible bridge funding and TA to be essential 

to the successful conversion of their business 

models. Providers in Washington, where bridge 

funding was not available, noted that transition 

can be accomplished without such support, but 

it takes much longer, resulting in more people 

remaining in segregated settings longer.

Similar to the work of the Rhode Island 

and Vermont Sheltered Workshop Conversion 

Institutes, WISE, and Living Opportunities, states 

should be funded through OSERS systems 

change grants, to designate TA entities to provide 

targeted and intensive TA to providers, training 

and qualification to direct support staff, and 

technical guidance to people with disabilities 

and families during systems change. It is of vital 

significance to the efficacy of national systems 

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 107
change efforts that there be TA entities of this 

kind in every state. Such TA entities should 

also provide guidance about the business and 

financial aspects of provider transformation and 

provide targeted advice transferable to providers’ 

particular circumstances (e.g., rural vs. urban). 

Moreover, like in Oregon and Rhode Island, these 

TA entities should review and approve detailed 

multiyear transformation plans from providers, 

delineate and clearly define expected processes 

(person-centered planning) and outcomes 

(using the definition of competitive integrated 

employment, including the typical features 

of employment, as the north star of service 

provision), and collect data and measure progress 

toward those outcomes. A significant portion of 

transformation grant funds should be expressly 

tied to the outcome of placement in competitive 

integrated employment.

It should not be expected, or even desired, 

that all sheltered workshops will make the 

transition to the new model of employment 

services. Those that do not demonstrate a true 

commitment to, and plan for, transformation 

of services to achieve competitive integrated 

employment outcomes, or that do not show 

such successful outcomes within a defined 

number of years, should not continue to receive 

transformation bridge funding or incentive 

payments.

Supporting States to Transform Their 

Employment Systems

We also noted in many of the states we 

visited, federally funded ODEP SMEs, deployed 

through the Employment First Leadership 

State Mentoring Program, had played critical 

roles in the transformation and rebalancing 

of state service systems. In particular, they 

provided intensive support to states with 

regard to rebalancing Medicaid rates and rate 

structures, interagency coordination, training and 

qualification standards for direct support staff, 

school transition, and provider transformation. 

State specific TA entities should rely on the 

expertise and institutional knowledge of national 

SMEs that have directly played a hand in systems 

change in other states. In addition to these 

areas, ODEP SMEs could advise states on 

how to redirect state contracting preferences 

away from funding segregated settings to 

support mainstream employers that hire people 

with disabilities from sheltered workshops or 

disability-owned businesses started by people 

with disabilities who have transitioned from 

sheltered workshops.

Recommendation C4: NCD recommends that 

Congress increase ODEP’s budget, so that 

ODEP can support critical TA to states engaged 

in systems change through its Employment 

First Leadership State Mentoring Program. 

ODEP SMEs should be funded and supported 

to: (1) serve as national subject matter liaisons 

to states on systems change and provider 

transformation; (2) provide technical guidance 

to all relevant state agencies, including VR, 

DD, and State Education Agencies on a range 

of issues impacting provider transformation, 

including funding strategies (i.e., rates), 

capacity-building strategies, interagency 

coordination, professional competence 

standards, and data collection methodologies; 

and (3) provide technical guidance to states 

about shifting contracting preferences from 

those that support subminimum wage labor 

toward those that support competitive 

integrated employment.

108 National Council on Disability
Using Technology to Facilitate 

Employment

Access to assistive technologies and other new 

and emerging technologies—like smart devices, 

apps, websites, kiosks—exponentially expand 

access to information, social networks, and 

methods of travel, and, thus, employability, for 

people who are blind or have communication 

disabilities.150 Similarly, augmentative 

communication devices and other technologies 

allow people with disabilities to communicate 

directly with coworkers, customers, and peers, 

and for people who are nonverbal, it has liberated 

them from the erroneous assumption that 

not speaking inherently means not working. 

However, we learned that many people with 

disabilities in sheltered workshops have been 

deprived of the very tools that could help them 

communicate their employment preferences 

including at annual service planning meetings. 

They often lack access to augmentative 

communication devices and other technologies 

and staff are not well trained in alternative 

forms of communication. In fact, the very lack 

of communication may have precipitated such 

people’ referral to the workshop in the first 

place. Similarly, students with disabilities often 

lose access to their school-provided assistive 

and augmentative technologies upon exiting the 

education system, thus limiting their ability to 

move into competitive integrated employment.

According to the Director of the Rhode Island 

Sheltered Workshop Conversion Institute, the 

results of a recent survey demonstrate that 

nearly 60 percent of the people in sheltered 

workshops in that state are nonverbal or 

experience barriers to communication. Similarly, 

he reported that other survey results in states 

like Pennsylvania demonstrate that over twothirds of people who do not communicate using 

words do not have a communication system in 

place.151 Yet as demonstrated by a mid-1990s 

survey of sheltered workshop participants 

in Olympia, Washington, when people with 

disabilities are supported with information 

and the best means to communicate their 

preferences for where they would like to work, 

they overwhelming choose regular jobs and not 

subminimum wage employment.152

Finally, NCD saw during our visits, how 

relatively small investments in technology that is 

flexible, adaptable, and customized to the needs 

of an individual with a disability and his or her job 

can reduce the need for, or even replace, costly 

permanent in-person staff assistance, such as job 

coaches. Yet VR agencies have little ability to fund 

the development, purchase, or implementation of 

such technologies or to incentivize providers to use 

those technologies, because payments are based 

on in-person time working with the individual.

Recommendation C5: NCD recommends that 

CMS and OSERS (Office of Special Education 

and Rehabilitative Services [OSEP] and RSA) 

jointly provide guidance, funding, and, if 

necessary, regulatory amendments, to assist 

people with significant disabilities who are 

at risk of entering, are in, or are transitioning 

from sheltered workshops can gain access 

to assistive technology and augmentative 

communication devices for purposes of 

preparing for, achieving, and succeeding in 

competitive integrated employment.

Recommendation C6: NCD recommends that 

RSA fund private business in consultation 

with state agencies to develop and implement 

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 109
new technologies to improve autonomy of 

supported employees, to increase early fading 

of in-person supports and development of 

natural supports, to provide services via 

online and other technology to support 

employees on the job, and to explore the cost 

savings and the funding models that best 

incentivize use of such technology.

Increasing Availability of Qualified 

Trained Staff

In numerous interviews and meetings, 

participants emphasized that there is a staffing 

crisis among direct support professionals, 

and that provider staff are not compensated 

appropriately to their educational attainment 

levels, causing high attrition and economic loss 

to the providers. Direct support staff are vital 

to the success of any systems change efforts. 

Moreover, it takes significant professional 

development, and training in core competencies, 

to be able to provide the services necessary to 

support people with significant disabilities to be 

placed in CIE. However, it becomes an overly 

burdensome cost proposition for providers 

to fund direct support staff’s training and 

certification if they lose those same staff due to 

attrition. Incentives must be rendered to direct 

support staff to reduce turnover. Stakeholders 

repeated that direct support professionals in 

supported employment are comparable in 

training and responsibility to teachers, customer 

service representatives, marketing professionals, 

and VR professionals and should be compensated 

accordingly.

Recommendation C7: NCD recommends that 

State Medicaid and VR agencies adjust their 

compensation structures (reimbursement 

structures and pay scales) for direct support 

professionals to take into account certification 

standards and professional development 

activities, to promote the retention of skilled 

frontline staff.

Evaluating Cost-Efficiencies

NCD’s interviews and travels were replete with 

firsthand accounts from numerous stakeholders, 

including government agencies, providers, 

and advocates, about the cost-effectiveness 

of providing supported employment services 

versus sheltered employment. A good many 

people involved in systems change have noted 

the return on investment to taxpayers. While 

there have been studies establishing the costeffectiveness of supported employment in 

academic scholarship, the field lacks a more 

comprehensive analysis conducted with recent 

data. As states implement transformation, they 

need to collect data on baselines and changes 

in outcomes, earnings, expenses, and other 

factors that will allow assessment of the costeffectiveness of transformation from sheltered 

work to competitive integrated employment.

Recommendation D1: NCD recommends that 

federal grants, waivers, and demonstration 

projects on supported employment and prevocational services require states to collect 

consistent baseline and ongoing data across 

VR, DD, and education systems and that the 

National Institute on Disability, Independent 

Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDLRR) 

be charged with collecting, assessing, and 

reporting on that data and on the return on 

investment of state employment service 

systems providing supported employment 

services versus sheltered employment.

110 National Council on Disability
The Future of Work in the 21st Century: 

Competitive Integrated Employment, 

Self-Employment, and Entrepreneurism 

by and for People with Disabilities

Just as people with disabilities are demanding 

the supports that will give them access to regular 

jobs, those jobs are changing. The nature of 

work for people with and without disabilities is 

changing—away from full-time employment, 

including on-site workers with full benefits, 

pensions, and long tenure with one employer—to 

those where workers are independent contractors 

working at flexible times in flexible locations and 

paying their own benefits while serving many 

customers. By all accounts, self-employment and 

entrepreneurship will continue to be the anthem 

of the next century of employment, as people 

with and without disabilities are less likely to 

be employed across the span of their working 

age years by one employer, and people are 

increasingly mobile, independent, and employed 

in jobs with such self-managed schedules and 

customers. In fact, the majority of new jobs in 

the economy consist of independent contracting, 

part-time, temporary, or gig economy jobs.153

Some economists estimate that the gig economy 

is expected to reach 40 percent of all jobs by 

2020.154 The next phase of innovation will require 

us to support people with disabilities in business 

enterprises and entrepreneurism. In other words, 

supports and services need to be available to 

not only get in the door to employment, but 

to help people to stay there and thrive, or to 

invent new ways to be employed through selfemployment. We interviewed a provider who was 

trying to support several people with disabilities 

to run their own businesses yet was trapped in 

the old analog world of retail sales in physical 

locations. Neither the state VR office nor the 

service provider knew how to support a business 

in the current digital marketplace, and they did 

not have access to the systems that support 

entrepreneurs without disabilities. To compete 

in the new American economy, however, these 

entrepreneurs and others like them need focused 

tools and funding to develop business plans, 

to acquire e-commerce platforms or business 

development tools and apps, and to market and 

manage their sales. With more modern tools, 

these disability-owned businesses could expand 

from incidental in-person sales to an online store 

with high-volume sales in a very short period 

of time. Likewise, other sheltered workshop 

employees have discussed interest in becoming 

app developers and coders. Yet, systems are not 

currently in place to support this.

In our visits to supported employment 

agencies throughout the Northeast and Pacific 

Northwest, we saw numerous examples of 

supported employment providers, through their 

own resourcefulness, partnering with the local 

Chamber of Commerce and Small Business 

Administration to assist people with disabilities 

to write business plans and launch businesses. 

Several agencies supported people to have their 

businesses registered with the state, but they 

acknowledged the lack of resources available to 

support them also to market their businesses and 

expand their reach. Nevertheless, in many cases, 

people who were formerly deemed competitively 

unemployable had become the masters of 

their own entrepreneurial ideas and had built 

solid, albeit small, networks of local customers 

and suppliers by word of mouth and traditional 

forms of networking, and as a result, enjoyed 

a pronounced level of autonomy and personal 

freedom.

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 111
In addition to historical exclusion from 

self-employment and lack of qualified support 

services focused on entrepreneurship, disabilityowned businesses do not have access to 

contract preferences available to businesses 

owned by other traditionally underrepresented 

groups. For example, the federal Section 8(a) 

program under the Small Business Act does 

not provide federal contracting set-asides for 

disability-owned businesses. Nevertheless, 

Disability:IN (formerly the United States Business 

Leadership Network)155 has developed a robust 

disability-owned business certification program 

that could be expanded to support such a setaside program by verifying that businesses are 

eligible.

Recommendation E1: NCD recommends 

that RSA administer TA grants to qualified 

supported employment providers to 

develop and pilot new systematic 

instruction techniques, technologies, 

and accommodations for employment 

professionals to support people with 

disabilities in the jobs of the future, including 

in new and emerging industries of the 

21st century, including creating business 

plans, marketing their services or products, 

and building strong networks within 

local business communities, to effectuate 

sustainable business enterprises.

Recommendation E2: NCD recommends that 

NIDLRR create a Jobs of the Future Research 

grants program dedicated to supporting 

people with disabilities to custom design and 

access their own technology-based business 

development tools to assist them in working 

in new and emerging industries of the 21st 

century.

Recommendation E3: NCD recommends 

that the resources committed to supporting 

people with disabilities to start their own 

businesses be improved. We recommend that 

CMS fund a Medicaid Infrastructure Grant 

(MIG) program for self-employment expressly 

dedicated to the incubation of start-up 

businesses created by and for people with 

significant disabilities.

Recommendation E4: In addition, NCD 

recommends that Congress increase federal 

funding to RSA for VR offices to commit 

additional dedicated VR staff to the incubation 

of small businesses and self-employment 

for people with disabilities. RSA should 

ensure a dedicated staff person in every VR 

office to small business development, selfemployment, and entrepreneurship.

Recommendation E5: NCD recommends that 

Congress amend Section 8(a) of the Small 

Business Act to make small businesses owned 

by people with significant disabilities eligible 

for federal set-aside contracts or create a new 

federal set-aside contract program, similar 

to the disabled veteran-owned business 

program, for businesses owned by people 

with significant disabilities. The recommended 

expansion of the Section 8(a) program should 

neither be confused with the AbilityOne 

program, nor allow AbilityOne participating 

businesses to compete in it.

Recommendation E6: NCD recommends 

that SBA, DOL, Employment and Training 

Administration (ETA), and the Office of 

Innovation and Entrepreneurship collaborate 

to increase access for people with disabilities 

to programs supporting entrepreneurs.

112 National Council on Disability
Recommendation E7: As recommended in 

NCD’s 2018 report Has the Promise Been 

Kept?: Federal Enforcement of Disability 

Rights Laws, ETA should take immediate 

concrete steps to make American Job Centers 

more accessible and capable of serving 

people with intellectual and developmental 

disabilities, who are blind, and with other 

disabilities, including those who are in 

sheltered workshops.

Stakeholders also shared with us their 

considerable consternation that the public 

workforce system, as set forth under Title I 

WIOA, was less accessible and available to 

people with disabilities in or transitioning from 

sheltered workshops than the VR system. Many 

providers lamented that, in particular, the two 

systems were specifically not leveraged to the 

maximum benefit of people with significant 

disabilities and who were blind.

Recommendation E8: NCD recommends that 

RSA and ETA commit additional resources to 

identify people with disabilities who are dually 

eligible for both Title I WIOA programs and 

the Title IV WIOA VR system. For those people 

who are concurrently eligible, RSA and ETA 

should issue guidance as to how federal funds 

can be leveraged and braided across systems.

Recommendation E9: NCD recommends that 

Congress should mandate that within the Title 

I WIOA public workforce system, a percentage 

of local Adult and Dislocated Worker and 

Vocational Rehabilitation Program funds be 

set aside to support apprenticeships, onthe-job training, and paid work experiences 

for people with significant disabilities in 

industries of the future and 21st century jobs.

Business Engagement and Outreach

The U.S. economy is approaching full 

employment. As a result, more and more 

businesses are changing their approaches 

to hiring, expanding their applicant pools, 

and specifically targeting historically 

underrepresented groups. The Oregon 

Manufacturing Extension Partnership (OMEP) 

told us that entry-level manufacturing jobs have 

increasingly become the work of supervising 

computerized machines, a far cry from the 

early 20th century manual processes employed 

in most sheltered workshops. Manufacturers 

are experiencing a significant labor shortage 

in operating these machines. Yet, OMEP said 

this labor shortage is not primarily the result of 

job applicants not having technical experience. 

In fact, the essential skills that OMEP’s 

manufacturers are looking for in prospective 

employees are reportedly classic ones, 

particularly well-suited for people with disabilities: 

problem-solving and a willingness to be trained 

on the job, including in the technologies of the 

next century. This made it even more surprising 

that OMEP was unaware that thousands of 

people with I/DD are set to receive the services 

and supports they need to leave Oregon 

workshops and enter competitive integrated 

employment over the next few years under the 

Lane v. Brown Consent Decree. Thousands of 

Lane class members are looking for jobs, yet 

OMEP had never been approached by VR or any 

other agency in the state about the issue.

Similarly, Disability:IN reported that more and 

more companies are seeking its support in order 

to expand their ability to hire, retain, and fully 

include people with disabilities, in part to fill their 

staffing needs to compete for applicants.

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 113
NCD’s site visits and interviews confirmed 

that mainstream employers are often unaware of 

the services supported employment providers’ 

offer to businesses that hire people with 

disabilities, are unaware of the financial benefits 

to the companies of hiring people with disabilities 

with supported employment services, and 

have a variety of misconceptions about what is 

required to support an employee with a disability. 

In addition, many businesses are deeply 

suspicious of government programs because of 

the perceptions that they carry a great deal of 

bureaucracy, expense, and restrictions.

Recommendation F1: NCD recommends 

that RSA and ETA should issue guidance to 

all American Job Center (AJC) and VR staff 

to deploy robust “business engagement 

strategies” within regional job markets on 

behalf of people with significant disabilities, 

as is required under Title I of WIOA.156

For example, AJCs are already charged with 

providing “business services” through the 

AJC network to assist businesses and industry 

sectors in recruiting, retaining, and developing 

the on-boarding of talent for the regional 

economy. AJCs should do this as a means of 

engaging business regionally in hiring people 

with disabilities from sheltered workshops and 

performing outreach to businesses about the 

availability of qualified workers with disabilities. 

These outreach strategies should include growing 

and emerging 21st century industries, using 

Bureau of Labor Statistics and other data-driven 

strategies. Business engagement strategies 

should include specifically consulting emerging 

industries of the future about their hiring goals, 

preferences, and business needs. It should also 

include identifying companies and industries with 

supply-chain footprints in subminimum wage 

employment and informing and encouraging 

them to hire those workers directly. Moreover, it 

should include outreach to the direct customers 

of subminimum wage employers to encourage 

them to on-board workers into competitive 

integrated employment. Such efforts will assist 

employers to recruit, retain, and develop effective 

on-boarding strategies for sheltered employees. 

Business engagement strategies should include 

partnerships between government agencies, 

private supported employment agencies and 

programs, foundations, and employers.

Recommendation F2: NCD recommends 

that RSA fund private business to develop 

apps that will allow businesses, supported 

employment service providers, and VR 

agencies to calculate the estimated financial 

benefits to businesses of hiring a person 

with a disability to perform a supported or 

customized job.

Supporting People with Disabilities and 

Their Families to Enter Competitive 

Integrated Employment

In many of our interviews and site visits, we 

heard people say that people with disabilities, 

parents, and families have benefited significantly 

from peer-to-peer mentoring to alleviate 

fears or concerns about the transition from 

sheltered workshops to competitive integrated 

employment. Certainly, for those who have 

had very few opportunities to learn about or try 

competitive integrated employment after having 

been in sheltered employment for many years, 

questions and concerns about such a transition 

are warranted, and peer-to-peer mentoring and 

family support networks are of great value. 

114 National Council on Disability
As one parent advocate pointed out, some 

families were involved in the original founding 

of their family member’s sheltered workshop 

because they thought they were the vanguard 

of community services at the time, and they 

continue to feel judged about their choice to 

allow their family member to work in them and 

earn subminimum wages. In her estimation, 

as a result, sometimes these feelings disrupt 

the process of a parent supporting an adult 

son or daughter to try competitive integrated 

employment. Yet, trying competitive integrated 

employment, in addition to talking to others 

who have made the transition to it, is one of the 

primary means by which it is possible to make an 

informed and meaningful choice about working. 

Peer mentoring and support is of significant value 

for this.

In fact, peer-to-peer mentoring may present 

unique opportunities for employment and selfemployment for people with disabilities that 

have left sheltered workshops. Under WIOA, 

“peer mentoring” is one of five Pre-Employment 

Transition Services provided to students 

with disabilities. Also, subminimum wage 

employers are required to inform people with 

disabilities of “self-advocacy, self-determination, 

and peer mentoring training opportunities 

available in the individual’s geographic area.”157

These opportunities cannot be provided by 

an individual’s 14(c) employer.158 People with 

disabilities should be supported to provide these 

services themselves as entrepreneurs and 

business people.

Recommendation G1: NCD recommends that 

the Administration for Community Living 

(ACL) provide additional grant funds to state 

developmental disability planning councils, 

and the University Affiliated Centers (now 

known as Centers of Excellence) coordinate 

and expand efforts to support peer support 

for both families and people with disabilities 

transitioning from the 14(c) programs to 

integrated employment.

Recommendation G2: NCD recommends 

that ODEP, RSA, and ETA provide TA to states 

including state agencies for supporting 

people with disabilities to develop disabilityowned businesses or self-employment for 

the purpose of providing peer mentoring. 

In addition, ODEP, RSA, and ETA should 

provide TA to nonprofit organizations, 

including developmental disability councils, 

associations for the blind, and centers for 

independent living, to find strategies for 

hiring people with disabilities who formerly 

worked in sheltered workshops to fill the 

burgeoning demand for peer-mentoring 

services. This would implement WIOA’s 

call for the expansion of self-advocacy, 

self-determination, and peer-mentoring 

opportunities in geographic proximity to 

youth and adults with disabilities, and 

prohibits the provision of such services by 

14(c) entities.

Even apart from the issue of accessing peermentoring supports, some families still fear 

that the supported employment model will not 

support their family member for all the hours 

that they were formerly working in the sheltered 

workshop. Other families reportedly have 

expressed concern for their family members’ 

safety in not being provided the same level of 

continuous supervision throughout a given week.

Many people with disabilities work parttime in competitive integrated employment 

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 115
(i.e., 15–20 hours per week) for a number of 

reasons including the availability of part-time 

versus full-time work, stringent institutional 

housing rules including group-home curfews, 

and lack of flexible access to transportation. NCD 

has found it to be a false equivalence that people 

with disabilities in part-time work are “working 

less” than people in sheltered workshops. We 

know from our extensive research and site visits 

that in many sheltered workshops contract work 

is drying up and workers are often not engaged in 

work for significant portions of the day. Moreover, 

in our travels, many of the providers that we met 

with advised us not to equate bricks and mortar 

with safety, because, in their view, people who 

are more fully engaged with broader networks 

of support were far safer than those in sheltered 

workshops. It was reported that many sheltered 

workshops are, in fact, providing day custody in 

the guise of work.

Increasing Self-Sufficiency and 

Self-Determination during 

Non-Work Hours

In our site visits across the country, we 

repeatedly saw supported employment models 

that provided effective supports to people 

with disabilities to promote their inclusion in 

integrated settings during the hours that they 

were not working. The providers we visited did 

not see their jobs as providing respite or day 

custody services, but rather as serving as a 

linking organization to fully support people to 

maximize their self-sufficiency during the hours 

that they were not working. In this regard, 

supported employment providers assisted 

people to engage in wrap-around services 

that enhanced their career development and 

economic self-sufficiency, broadened social 

networks, and injected them into mainstream 

civic, recreational, and educational commitments 

of their choice. Importantly, those supported 

employment providers did not advocate counting 

the mere number of hours in integrated day 

services or provider-run activities as success. As 

one national subject matter expert advised, the 

strongest metrics for inclusion in the community 

during hours that people are not working include 

personal outcomes and not hours, like the 

number of unpaid personal relationships built, 

valued adult social roles played, and the breadth 

of expanded networks created to advance one’s 

career. Additional technical guidance may be 

necessary to states to plan, fund, and support 

providers to establish holistic integrated wraparound service models for people with disabilities 

to access during the hours that they are not 

working.

Recommendation G3: NCD recommends 

that the Administration on Intellectual 

and Developmental Disabilities (AIDD), 

Administration for Children and Families 

(ACF), and U.S. Department of Health and 

Human Services (HHS) fund the Association 

of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD) 

to provide pilot programs across the states 

to incubate and assess models for ensuring 

that people with disabilities are supported to 

fully participate in the community during the 

hours that they are not working, including 

in activities that expand self-sufficiency and 

employability. These pilot projects should 

determine appropriate objectives, techniques, 

and data collection criteria for wrap-around 

integrated day services and should seek to 

measure cost efficiencies for providing such 

services.

116 National Council on Disability
Benefits Counseling and Planning

Throughout NCD’s meetings and interviews, 

people with disabilities, their family members, 

their service providers, and state agency officials 

repeatedly and fervently stated that people with 

disabilities were dissuaded from working, or from 

working as many hours as they can, because 

of pervasive and deeply-held beliefs about the 

impact of competitive integrated employment 

on their public benefits. Some of these beliefs 

are incorrect because the rules for Medicaid 

and Social Security benefits have changed over 

the past two decades. Some of these beliefs 

are correct because legitimate disincentives 

to work still exist in the Medicaid and Social 

Security systems. And the truth of some of the 

beliefs is complex and depends on the person’s 

circumstances. These concerns about benefits 

relate particularly to the loss of Medicaid health 

care benefits and to the loss of Supplemental 

Security Income (SSI) and Social Security 

Disability Insurance (SSDI) cash benefits as 

earnings increase.

Qualified benefits counselors make 

a tremendous difference as people with 

disabilities decide whether to join the integrated 

workforce and as they decide how many hours 

they can work. By making clear to people 

with disabilities the reality of the financial 

consequences of their work decisions, benefits 

counselors dramatically transform attitudes of 

people with disabilities and their families about 

the risks inherent in working. For example, 

benefits counselors can explain, as NCD did in 

its report Medicaid Managed Care for People 

with Disabilities: Policy and Implementation 

Considerations for Federal and State 

Policymakers,

159 that:

states are required to continue Medicaid 

benefits to people under age 65 who 

(a) have not recovered from the physical 

or mental impairment(s) that formed the 

basis of their eligibility; (b) need Medicaid 

coverage in order to continue working; 

(c) would otherwise lose Medicaid and 

SSI benefits due to earnings in excess of 

the SGA [Substantial Gainful Activity] test; 

and (d) continue to meet other SSI and 

Medicaid eligibility requirements. These 

Medicaid beneficiaries are referred to as 

“Qualified Severely Impaired Individuals.” 

They are entitled to receive Medicaid 

coverage after the loss of SSI eligibility 

until they reach an income level the Social 

Security Administration considers sufficient 

to purchase “reasonably equivalent” health 

insurance coverage (or buy into Medicaid 

coverage) and, if required, pay for attendant 

care services.

In addition, benefits planners can explain how 

the Medicaid Buy-In program allows states that 

have opted into it to allow people with disabilities 

to buy in to Medicaid coverage depending on 

their income or the income of their family.160

Or they can explain how reinstatement of SSI 

benefits can be accomplished without a new 

application if a competitive integrated job does 

not work out within 12 months,161 and how SSDI 

cash benefits and Medicaid can be reinstated 

on an expedited basis and temporarily provided 

during the reinstatement process for up to six 

months if a person with a disability stopped 

receiving benefits within five years because 

they went to work.162 Finally, benefits counselors 

can explain how the increased income from 

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 117
competitive integrated employment can more 

than replace any lost income from public 

benefits, supporting people to achieve the result 

that is most beneficial for them, their families, 

their states, and the federal government.

However, stakeholders across the states 

lamented the lack of sufficient availability of 

qualified benefits counselors and information on 

how benefits would be affected by work. To be 

qualified, benefits counselors require five days of 

in-person training, 25 hours of self-study, 24–45 

hours of assessment, certification, and continuing 

education. Training and certification are generally 

only available through two universities (Virginia 

Commonwealth University [VCU] and Cornell 

University) nationwide. Ten to 12 training sessions 

are offered without charge at various locations 

across the country annually, but often requires 

trainees to incur travel and lodging expenses, 

as well as a week away from work. VCU had 

trained over 2,500 benefits counselors as of 2017. 

According to VCU, those counselors have served 

over 800,000 beneficiaries. However, there are 

over 8.5 million people with disabilities receiving 

SSDI benefits in the country.163

Strong qualification and credentialing are 

important due to the complexity of state and 

federal benefits. However, the need for additional 

benefits counselors across the country calls for 

increasing the capacity of training providers, 

incentivizing people to participate in the training 

and certification programs and encouraging 

service providers and their staff to provide 

benefits counseling, particularly in rural areas.

Recommendation G4: NCD recommends 

that Congress authorize additional funding 

for training, assessment, and credentialing 

of benefits counselors, or Certified Work 

Incentives Counselors (CWICs), in additional 

locations across the country each year, as well 

as for exploration of the efficacy of online and 

other forms of training to assist in developing 

new benefits counselors in rural areas.

Recommendation G5: NCD recommends that 

the Social Security Administration (SSA), 

CMS, and RSA support state agencies and 

service providers to offer benefits counseling 

through remote methods for people who 

live in remote areas or who have difficulty 

traveling, in order to better serve rural areas.

For example, just as online and tele-medicine 

has shown promise in serving the healthcare 

needs of people in rural areas, online and telecounseling could do the same for people with 

disabilities pursuing employment in rural areas.

In addition to increasing the availability 

of benefits counselors, benefits transition 

calculators and other tools should be developed 

to allow beneficiaries and their families and 

service providers, as well as benefits counselors, 

to access up-to-date information about how 

their benefits will be affected by a transition 

to competitive integrated work. Software 

applications (“apps”) that are regularly updated 

could help a great deal in keeping benefits 

counselors up to date on changes to benefits 

availability within their states and could help 

reduce the fear that people with disabilities and 

their families face when considering a transition 

to work or an increase in income.

Recommendation G6: NCD recommends 

that SSA, RSA, and CMS in partnership with 

private business, fund the development of a 

software application that can demonstrate, 

on an individual basis that includes state law 

118 National Council on Disability
differences, how health care and cash benefits 

will be affected by a person with a disability 

going to work or increasing income.

Disconnecting the Availability of 

Medicaid Benefits for People with 

Disabilities from Income and Assets

People with significant disabilities tend to have 

greater, more long-term, and more specialized, 

health care needs than the general public. Yet 

employee-sponsored health care benefits tend to 

be targeted to serving the employees who do not 

have those extensive, long-term, or specialized 

needs. In addition, many employers do not offer 

health care benefits to part-time employees 

or contractors. As a result, many potential 

employees with disabilities cannot benefit from 

their employer-sponsored health care benefits. 

Nor do private market individual insurance 

policies cover the long-term specialized needs 

of people with significant disabilities, including 

I/DD. Only Medicaid covers the specialized longterm disability-related services needs of people 

with disabilities. While the Medicaid Buy-In 

program allows people with disabilities to pay 

part of their Medicaid premiums, that program 

imposes caps on income at which a person is not 

eligible for the Buy-In program. Federal law caps 

the program at monthly income of $2,512.50 

and asset limits of $2,000 but allows states to 

impose lower limits.

Limits in participating states range from a 

low of $981 monthly ($11,772/year) income to a 

high of $6,250 monthly ($75,000/year).164 Most 

participating states limit monthly income to 

$2,000–$3,000. State asset limits range from 

$2,000 to $75,000, with most states capping 

assets at below $15,000. Seven states do not 

participate in the Buy-In program at all.

To the extent the loss of Medicaid benefits 

continues to stop people with disabilities from 

entering the workforce, giving up cash benefits, 

and becoming taxpayers, these Buy-In limits are 

counterproductive.

Recommendation G7: NCD recommends 

that people with significant disabilities be 

eligible for Medicaid long-term disabilityrelated services (not necessarily full Medicaid) 

regardless of income and eligibility or 

employer-sponsored health benefits.

Recommendation G8: NCD recommends that 

the Medicaid Buy-In program be expanded 

in every state for working people with 

disabilities who are not eligible for employerprovided health benefits without limitation on 

monthly income or assets.

The expenses people with significant 

disabilities incur when engaging with the 

community, including work, are significantly 

higher than the expenses people without 

disabilities incur. An accessible vehicle, for 

example, costs between $20,000 and $80,000 

above the cost of the vehicle.165 Paratransit 

services, where it is available at all, impose 

timing restrictions (the paratransit provider 

is permitted to schedule your ride up to two 

hours before or two hours after your requested 

time), which makes it incompatible with a work 

schedule and insufficiently flexible. For those who 

may not require a physically accessible vehicle 

but cannot drive themselves, taxi or ride-share 

services, where they are available, are an extra 

expense.166

In addition, the extraordinary extra costs of 

living with a significant disability do not end 

with retirement, which tends to occur earlier for 

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 119
people with preexisting disabilities. One of the 

major issues facing people with I/DD and their 

families is the concern about what those people 

will do when their caregiver parents are deceased 

or unable to care for them and how they will 

live when they are no longer able to participate 

in work and day services. Nursing homes loom 

large in these fears. The federal government 

provides a variety of tax and other incentives to 

assist people without disabilities to save for their 

retirements but does little to allow people with 

significant disabilities to do the same. Instead, 

workers with disabilities are disincentivized from 

accepting employer contributions to retirement 

savings because they will count as assets that 

will undermine Medicaid eligibility. This is shortsighted on the government’s part, because 

encouraging such retirement savings would 

reduce both the public benefits burden on the 

government when these people are working and 

earning and saving more, and when they retire 

and, without retirement savings, they are likely 

to fall entirely on government benefits, Medicare, 

and Medicaid, as well as experiencing a lower 

than necessary quality of life.

Recommendation G9: NCD recommends that 

income and asset limits for Medicaid Buy-In 

be raised significantly to account for increased 

out-of-pocket disability-related expenses, such 

as transportation, personal care, assistive 

technology, and other disability-related 

employment expenses.

Recommendation G10: NCD recommends 

that retirement savings in qualified retirement 

accounts be excluded from assets considered 

in determining eligibility for Social Security 

and Medicaid for people with significant 

disabilities.

Supporting Youth to Enter Competitive 

Integrated Employment and Higher 

Education

Stakeholders consistently identified the 

importance of education systems taking concrete 

steps to align educational curriculum and 

instruction with employment-related transition 

planning. The strongest predictor of whether 

a student will be placed in postsecondary 

competitive integrated employment is whether 

they have engaged in one or more paid work 

experiences while in school.167 WIOA has 

ushered in requirements for preemployment 

transition services including work-based learning 

experiences in the least restrictive environment. 

States should be supported to link eligible 

students with disabilities with the services that 

they need to access competitive integrated 

employment as early as possible in the school 

trajectory, and then to seamlessly transition 

to the adult employment service system to 

sustain such employment. Many states have 

incorrectly interpreted the WIOA requirements 

to allow work-based learning experiences on 

school campuses or in adult sheltered workshops 

if subminimum wages are not paid to the 

student. States must be supported to model and 

implement truly integrated work-based learning 

experiences. These programs should incorporate 

new technologies, and workplace and business 

development tools, wherever possible.

Recommendation H1: NCD recommends that 

a portion of OSERS’ systems change grants, 

as recommended above, to be dedicated to 

supporting states to scale school transition 

programs like Project Search, Seamless 

Transition, and Guideposts to Success. 

120 National Council on Disability
NCD also recommends that these programs 

be expanded to include the piloting of training 

and systematic instruction around the use of 

technologies during transition, including the 

use of smart devices and business application 

tools, where appropriate.

Recommendation H2: NCD recommends ED 

OSEP, within its oversight authority of the 

IDEA, should encourage the use of Indicator 

14 for youth with disabilities to obtain 

paid work experiences and require annual 

Indicator 14 reporting data to specifically 

track the number of students who transition 

to sheltered workshops versus competitive 

integrated employment with specific data 

on type of employment, hours worked, and 

wages earned.

Recommendation H3: NCD recommends ED 

and DOL should prohibit the use of sheltered 

workshops as placements for transitionrelated activities or skills assessment 

and prohibit the use of “mock sheltered 

workshops” in schools. ED and DOL should 

impose clear financial sanctions on school 

districts that violate this prohibition. ED and 

DOL can use as a guidepost in instituting 

this prohibition the Oregon Department of 

Education’s policies prohibiting such activities.

NCD has long understood that failure to 

earn a high school diploma or a GED is nearly 

an insurmountable barrier to employment, and 

students with disabilities are often tracked away 

from regular high school diplomas. Numerous 

times throughout our travels and interviews, we 

were also reminded of the critical impact access 

to institutions of higher education have on future 

employability.

Recommendation H4: NCD recommends 

ED, including its Office of Postsecondary 

Education and the ThinkCollege program, 

should identify partnerships or programs to 

incubate or expand access to community 

college programs and other institutions of 

higher learning for professional development, 

certifications, and skills advancement, as 

students with disabilities are leaving school 

or sheltered workshops and entering the 

mainstream workforce.

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 121
122 National Council on Disability
Appendix A: Research Methodology

Interviews

Using the same series of open-ended questions, the team interviewed advocates, supported 

employment providers, state policymakers, workers with disabilities, families, researchers, providers 

of workshop programs, and SMEs. Over the course of two months we spoke with over 160 people in 

26 states, including the District of Columbia.

Site Visits

Six states were selected for site visits: Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, Oregon, 

and Washington—taking into account geographic diversity, state and local policy, states that had 

successfully converted and/or eliminated sheltered workshops and providers within them that have 

not; states that once had a large population of people with disabilities in sheltered settings and now do 

not; suburban; urban; and rural settings. The team selected a cross section of states and communities 

to get a detailed understanding of how states are funding transformation, modeling supported and 

customized employment strategies, and defining their outcomes. In Oregon and Washington, two of 

the largest states, group stakeholder meetings were held as well as individual site-specific interviews. 

The stakeholder meetings consisted of a combined three hours of moderated discussion with selfadvocates, parent groups and family members, P&A lawyers, Section 14(c) and AbilityOne providers, 

representatives from the blind and I/DD communities, supported employment providers and staff, job 

coaches and job developers, TA staff, SMEs, and others.

Telephone Surveys

Using the Section 14(c) Certificate-Holders list provided by the Wage and Hour Division we also 

conducted telephone surveys of employers from the Business Certificate-Holder list and Patient Worker 

list. The survey asked questions about certificate-holders’ knowledge of the 14(c) certificate program, 

competitive integrated employment, the number of people employed under their 14(c) certificates, 

the type of work being done, working conditions, wages, and barriers to paying prevailing wage. Each 

employer was attempted to be reached twice.

From the Business Certificate-Holder list we contacted all 50 employers. Twelve agreed to 

participate in the telephonic survey from seven states: California, Colorado, Maryland, Massachusetts, 

Ohio, Oklahoma, and South Dakota.

From the Patient Workers list we contacted the top 10 employers based on the number of 

employees paid subminimum wages. Three agreed to participate in the survey from facilities in three 

states: Arkansas, Illinois, and Utah.

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 123
Online Survey

An online survey was sent using the platform Surveygizmo to the NDRN distribution list of P&A staff. 

The survey asked employees from each statewide P&A system to share information on the customers 

of sheltered workshops, or those companies with workshops in their supply chains in their state. The 

survey was completed by representatives from 18 states.

Employment Data Collection

Data on the number of people employed in subminimum wage settings was collected from the 14(c) 

Certificate-Holders list provided by the Wage and Hour Division, that was last updated April 1, 2018. 

The most recent 990 Tax Form was used to collect financial data on each of the top 50 Community 

Rehabilitation Programs (CRPs) based on the number of employees paid subminimum wage. Additional 

information about the top 50 CRPs contracts, finances, and services was collected through their 

websites and annual reports.

Contract Data Collection

Information on state-use contracts and providers was gathered from individual state government 

websites and procurement offices.

Information on AbilityOne contracts and providers was gathered through the AbilityOne Annual 

Report, National Industries for the Blind (NIB) associated agency list, and the SourceAmerica Nonprofit 

Locator.

124 National Council on Disability
Endnotes

1 K. Charlie Lakin, “Residential Services for Persons with Disabilities: Status and Trends,” Research and Training 

Center on Community Living (2009), https://rtc.umn.edu/docs/RISP2009.pdf

2 In 1975, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA) was passed, and mandated free and 

appropriate public education for children with disabilities, and the provision of special education and related 

services. EHA was amended as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1997 and 2004. IDEA 

requires states that accepted IDEA funding to ensure that all students with disabilities receive a free and 

appropriate public education (FAPE), and that they do so in the least restrictive environment (LRE).

3 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 20 U.S.C. § 1400 (2004).

4 Letter from Patricia Davidson, Deputy Administrator for Program Operations, United States Department of 

Labor to Senator Elizabeth Warren (July 5, 2018).

5 Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics Summary,” https://www.bls

.gov/news.release/disabl.nr0.htm

6 Ibid.

7 Dorothy Hiersteiner, et al., ”Working in the Community: The Status and Outcomes of People with Intellectual 

and Developmental Disabilities in Integrated Employment,” National Core Indicators Project (2016).

8 United Nations Global Status Report on Disability and Development Prototype, United Nations Department 

of Economic and Social Affairs (2015), http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/documents/disability/2016/

GlobalStatusReportonDisabilityandDevelopment.pdf

9 President George H. W. Bush, “Statement on the Signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act“ 

(Washington, DC, July 26, 1990).

10 Subminimum Wage and Supported Employment. Washington, DC: National Council on Disability (2012), 

https://www.ncd.gov/publications/2012/August232012

11 Ibid., 18.

12 Report to U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez and Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions 

Committee, Washington, DC: Advisory Committee on Increasing Competitive Integrated Employment for 

Individuals with Disabilities (2016), https://www.dol.gov/odep/topics/pdf/ACICIEID_Final_Report_9-8-16.pdf

13 Groups support the repeal of Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 2015. National Federation for the 

Blind, https://nfb.org/images/nfb/documents/word/opposition_list_section_14c_20150114.doc

14 “Declaration in Support of Minimum Wage for All People Who Are Blind or Have Significant Disabilities,” 

AbilityOne (March 18, 2016), https://www.abilityone.gov/Commission/Commision_Declaration.html

15 Transitioning to Integrated Meaningful Employment Act (TIME Act), H.R. 1377, 115th Cong. (2017), https://

www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1377/text; see also Transitioning to Integrated Meaningful 

Employment Act (TIME Act), H.R. 188, 114th Cong. (2015), https://www.congess.gov/bill/114th-congress/

house-bill/188; TIME ACT FAQ, https://nfb.org/time-act-faqs

16 “Special Employment,” Wage and Hour Division, Department of Labor, 2017, http://www.dol.gov/whd/

specialemployment/index.htm

17 “Special Minimum Wage Program, Centers Offer Employment and Support Services to Workers with 

Disabilities, But Labor Should Improve Oversight,” GAO Report 01-886 (2001), https://www.gao.gov/new

.items/d01886.pdf

18 Wage and Hour Division staff, interview with author (June 2018).

19 Letter from Patricia Davidson, Deputy Administrator for Program Operations, United States Department of 

Labor to Senator Elizabeth Warren (July 5, 2018).

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 125
20 “14(C) Certificate Holders,” Wage and Hour Division, Department of Labor (2017), https://www.dol.gov/whd/

workerswithdisabilities/certificates.htm

21 J. Butterworth, et al., State Data: The National Report on Employment Services and Outcomes. Boston, MA: 

University of Massachusetts Boston, Institute for Community Inclusion (2011).

22 J. Winsor, J. Timmons, et al., The National Report on Services and Outcomes. Boston, MA: University of 

Massachusetts Boston, Institute for Community Inclusion (2016), https://www.statedata.info/sites/statedata

.info/files/files/statedata_bluebook_2016.pdf

23 Ibid. (citing Winsor et al., 2017; Nord et al., 2016; Mank, 2003; Domin & Butterworth, 2012).

24 Ibid.

25 Has the Promise Been Kept? Federal Enforcement of Disability Rights Laws. Washington, DC: National 

Council on Disability (2018), https://www.ncd.gov/sites/default/files/NCD_Federal-Enforcement_508.pdf

26 “Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics,” Bureau of Labor Statistics (June 21, 2017), https://

www.bls.gov/news.release/disabl.nr0.htm

27 Industry Profile: Basic Infrastructure, World Economic Forum, 201. http://reports.weforum.org/

future-of-jobs-2016/basic-infrastructure/

28 “Industry Profile: Basic and Infrastructure,” The Future of Jobs, World Economic Forum. http://reports

.weforum.org/future-of-jobs-2016/basic-infrastructure/

29 C.F.R. §§ 525.7, 525.8, 525.9, 525.11, 525.12, and 525.13.

30 29 U.S.C. § 214(c)(1)–(2).

31 Id. at § 214(c)(2)(A).

32 Erik W. Carter, Diane Austin, and Audrey A. Trainor, “Predictors of Postschool Employment Outcomes for 

Young Adults with Severe Disabilities,” Journal of Disability Policy Studies 23, no. 1 (2011): 50–63.

33 General Accounting Office (GAO), September 2001, Special Minimum Wage Program, Centers Offer 

Employment and Support Services to Workers with Disabilities, But Labor Should Improve Oversight

GAO-01-886, page 4.

34 Robert Evert Cimera, “The cost-trends of supported employment versus sheltered employment,” Journal of 

Vocational Rehabilitation, (2008): 15–20, pages 18, 19.

35 “A Brief History of the AbilityOne Program,” U.S. AbilityOne Commission (2016), https://www.abilityone.gov/

abilityone_program/history.html

36 Ibid.

37 41 U.S.C. § 8501 (6)–(7).

38 41 U.S.C. §8501 (stating, to be eligible to work on an AbilityOne contract, an individual with a disability 

must be legally blind or must have a physical or mental disability that “constitutes a substantial handicap to 

employment and is of such a nature as to prevent the individual under such disability from currently engaging 

in normal competitive employment.”).

39 Lane v. Kitzhaber, 841 F. Supp. 2d 1199, 1205–06 (D. Or. 2012).

40 Ibid. at 1206.

41 34 C.F.R. § 361.5(b)(16); see also 29 U.S.C. §§ 720(a)(1), (a)(3)(B) (Title I of the Rehabilitation Act) (“Individuals 

with disabilities must be provided the opportunities to obtain gainful employment in integrated settings.”); 

U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, Rehabilitation Services 

Administration, Technical Assistance Circular, 06-01 (Nov. 21, 2005), http://www2.ed.gov/policy/speced/guid/

rsa/tac-06-01.doc

42 Section 7(5) of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. § 705(5), 34 C.F.R. § 361.5(c)(9).

“Competitive Integrated Employment,” consistent with the federal Workforce Innovation and 

Opportunity Act (WIOA), means work that is performed on a full-time or part-time basis (including selfemployment): (a) For which an individual is compensated at a rate that: (1) Meets or exceeds state or 

local minimum wage requirements, whichever is higher; and (2) Is not less than the customary rate paid 

126 National Council on Disability
by the employer for the same or similar work performed by other employees who are not individuals 

with disabilities, and who are similarly situated in similar occupations by the same employer and who 

have similar training, experience, and skills; or (3) In the case of an individual who is self-employed, 

yields an income that is comparable to the income received by other individuals who are not individuals 

with disabilities, and who are self-employed in similar occupations or on similar tasks and who have 

similar training experience, and skills; and (b) For which an individual is eligible for the level of benefits 

provided to other employees; and (c) Which is at a location where the employee interacts with other 

persons who are not individuals with disabilities (not including supervisory personnel or individuals who 

are providing services to such employee) to the same extent that individuals who are not individuals 

with disabilities and who are in comparable positions interact with other persons; and (d) Which, as 

appropriate, presents opportunities for advancement that are similar to those for other employees who 

are not individuals with disabilities and who have similar positions. See WIOA, Pub. L. No. 113–128, 128 

Stat. 1425, 1633–34 (2014).

43 34 C.F.R. § 361.5(c)(32).

44 Ibid.

45 Ibid.

46 RSA TAC 06-01 (2005) states, “For CRPs that provide employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities 

under the JWOD program, the very nature of the JWOD program may raise questions as to whether the 

employment position at such a CRP sought by an individual with a disability through the VR program satisfies 

the definition of ‘integrated setting’ and, thus, would constitute an ‘employment outcome.’ Factors that 

typically distinguish JWOD-funded job positions from other positions include: (1) allowances under the Fair 

Labor Standards Act for compensatory subminimum wages; and (2) mandated direct labor-hour ratio of 

persons with disabilities. These factors are important when analyzing whether a particular work-unit within a 

CRP satisfies the definition of ‘integrated setting’ and, thus, constitutes an employment outcome under the 

VR program because they are critical elements of the definitions pertinent to this analysis, namely, ‘integrated 

setting,’ ‘employment outcome,’ and ‘extended employment.’”

47 RSA Technical Assistance Circular 06-01 (2005); U.S. Department of Education, OSERS, FAQ (January 18, 

2017).

48 “RSA: Integrated Location Criteria of the Definition of ‘Competitive Integrated Employment’ FAQs,” OSERS, 

U.S. Department of Education (January 18, 2017), https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/osers/rsa/wioa/

competitive-integrated-employment-faq.html

49 81 FR 161 at 55463 (August 19, 2016).

50 62 FR 6308 (Feb. 11, 1997).

51 66 FR 361 (Jan. 22, 2001).

52 David Mank, Andrea Cioffi, and Paul Yovanoff, “Direct Support in Supported Employment 

and Its Relation to Job Typicalness, Coworker Involvement, and Employment Outcomes.” 

Mental Retardation 38, no. 6 (December 2000): 506–516, http://www.aaiddjournals.org/doi/

abs/10.1352/00476765%282000%29038%3C0506%3ADSISEA%3E2.0.CO%3B2

53 See 41 U.S.C. §8501 (stating, to be eligible to work on an AbilityOne contract, an individual with a disability 

must be legally blind or must have a physical or mental disability that “constitutes a substantial handicap to 

employment and is of such a nature as to prevent the individual under such disability from currently engaging 

in normal competitive employment.”).

54 “Student Work Experience List.” 14(c) Certificate Holders, Wage and Hour Division (July 1, 2018), https://

www.dol.gov/whd/specialemployment/SWEPlist.htm

55 “Business Certificate Holders List.” 14 (c) Certificate Holders, Wage and Hour Division (July 1, 2018), https://

www.dol.gov/whd/specialemployment/BusinessCertList.htm

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 127
56 “WH-226 and WH-226(A), 14(c) Certificate Applications,” April 1, 2018. Data provided by the Wage and Hour 

Division, U.S. Department of Labor. Accessed July 2018.

57 “WH-226 and WH-226(A), 14(c) Certificate Applications,” April 1, 2018. Data provided by the Wage and Hour 

Division, U.S. Department of Labor. Accessed July 2018.

WHD provided Section 14(c) certificate applications for the “Top 10” largest certificate holders on the 

Business certificate list, based upon the number of employees paid a subminimum wage as reported 

by the employer on their application, as of WHD’s April 1, 2018 list. Each page provided was redacted 

under the Freedom of Information Act guidelines.

58 “Telephone survey results,” survey conducted by the Council, August 2018. “Response to Request for Data,” 

Wage and Hour Division, U.S. Department of Labor. Accessed July 2018.

59 “WH-226 and WH-226(A), 14(c) Certificate Applications,” April 1, 2018. Data provided by the Wage and Hour 

Division, U.S. Department of Labor. Accessed July 2018.

60 Riverview Productions, 14(c) Certificate Application, 2018. Data provided by the Wage and Hour Division, U.S. 

Department of Labor. Accessed July 2018.

61 Ibid.

62 “Response to Request for Data,” Wage and Hour Division, U.S. Department of Labor. Accessed July 2018.

According to data provided by the WHD, approximately 24% of PWL certificate-holders are non-profit 

organizations, approximately 16% are for profit companies, and approximately 59% are public including 

state and local institutions.

63 “Employers of Patient Workers List.” 14 (c) Certificate Holders, Wage and Hour Division (July 1, 2018), https://

www.dol.gov/whd/specialemployment/PatientWorkerList.htm

64 “WH-226 and WH-226(A), 14(c) Certificate Applications,” April 1, 2018. Data provided by the Wage and Hour 

Division, U.S. Department of Labor. Accessed July 2018.

The data reflects the number of FLSA Section 14(c) patient worker certificate applications received 

per year, and of the applications received, the number that are renewal applications; and, the number 

of patient worker certificates issued in that year. The number of certificates issued may include 

applications received in a prior year. Of the certificates issued, WHD does not separate those that were 

renewal certificates.

65 “WH-226 and WH-226(A), 14(c) Certificate Applications,” April 1, 2018. Data provided by the Wage and Hour 

Division, U.S. Department of Labor. Accessed July 2018.

WHD provided Section 14(c) certificate applications for the “Top 10” largest certificate-holders on the 

Patient Workers list, based upon the number of employees paid a subminimum wage as reported by the 

employer on their application, as of WHD’s April 1, 2018 list. Each page provided was redacted under 

the Freedom of Information Act guidelines.

66 “Employers of Patient Workers List.” 14 (c) Certificate-Holders, Wage and Hour Division (July 1, 2018), https://

www.dol.gov/whd/specialemployment/PatientWorkerList.htm

67 Conway Human Development Center, 14(c) Certificate Application, 2018. (Provided by WHD, July 2018).

68 “WH-226 and WH-226(A), 14(c) Certificate Applications,” April 1, 2018. Data provided by the Wage and Hour 

Division, U.S. Department of Labor. Accessed July 2018.

69 Utah State Developmental Center, 14(c) Certificate Application, 2018. (Provided by WHD, July 2018.)

70 Beverly Farm Developmental Training Center, 14(c) Certificate Application, 2018. (Provided by WHD, July 2018.)

71 Tacachale Industries, 14(c) Certificate Application, 2018. (Provided by WHD, July 2018.)

72 “Response to Request for Data,” Wage and Hour Division, U.S. Department of Labor. Accessed July 2018.

73 “Community Rehabilitation Programs List.” 14 (c) Certificate-Holders, Wage and Hour Division (July 1, 2018), 

https://www.dol.gov/whd/specialemployment/BusinessCertList.htm

128 National Council on Disability
74 Letter from Patricia Davidson, Deputy Administrator for Program Operations, United States Department of 

Labor to Senator Elizabeth Warren (July 5, 2018).

75 “Community Rehabilitation Programs List.” 14 (c) Certificate-Holders, Wage and Hour Division (July 1, 2018), 

https://www.dol.gov/whd/specialemployment/BusinessCertList.htm

76 Ibid.

77 Ibid.

78 “State Population totals and Components of Change: 2010–2017,” Data, U.S. Census Bureau. July 9, 2018. 

https://www.census.gov/data/datasets/2017/demo/popest/state-total.html

79 Ibid.

80 “Response to Request for Data,” Wage and Hour Division, U.S. Department of Labor. Accessed July 2018.

81 “Community Rehabilitation Programs List.” 14 (c) Certificate-Holders, Wage and Hour Division (July 1, 2018), 

https://www.dol.gov/whd/specialemployment/BusinessCertList.htm “Nonprofit Agencies,” U.S. AbilityOne 

Commission. Accessed July 2018. https://www.abilityone.gov/abilityone_network/nonprofit.html

82 Ibid.

83 Ibid.

84 Ibid.

85 Ibid.

86 Javits-Wagner-O’Day Act, 41 U.S.C. § 8504.

87 “Procurement Preferences,” accessed through each state legislative code.

88 “Community Rehabilitation Programs List.” 14 (c) Certificate-Holders, Wage and Hour Division (July 1, 2018), 

https://www.dol.gov/whd/specialemployment/BusinessCertList.htm

89 IRS Form 990, Part I line 12, “Total Revenue.” Accessed for the Top 10 CRPs by number of Subminimum wage 

workers as determined through the DOL 14(c) CRP List.

90 Social Vocational Services IRS Form 990, Part V11 Section A, “Officer, Directors, Trustees, Key Employees, 

Highest Compensated Employees.”

91 Pride Industries IRS Form 990, Part V11 Section A, “Officer, Directors, Trustees, Key Employees, Highest 

Compensated Employees.”

92 IRS Form 990, Part I line 12, “Total Revenue.” Accessed July 2018.

93 “Community Rehabilitation Programs List.” 14 (c) Certificate Holders, Wage and Hour Division (July 1, 2018), 

https://www.dol.gov/whd/specialemployment/BusinessCertList.htm

94 Ibid.

95 ”Nonprofit Agencies,” U.S. AbilityOne Commission. Accessed July 2018. https://www.abilityone.gov/

abilityone_network/nonprofit.html

96 “History,” About Us, SourceAmerica, 2018. https://www.sourceamerica.org/history

97 IRS Form 990, Part I line 12, “Total Revenue.” Accessed July 2018.

98 “Survey on Sheltered workshop Supply Chains,” distributed by NDRN, August 2018.

99 Glassman, Rick. 78 Illustrations of Large Corporations and Institutions Benefiting from Subminimum Wage 

Employment of Workers with Disabilities in Massachusetts, under FLSA Section 14[c], Disability Law Center, 

Boston, Massachusetts (January 16, 2018), www.dlc-ma.org

100 Microsoft Real Estate and Facilities Supported Employment Program, Supported Employment Program Toolkit

(2018), https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/procurement/diversity-sep.aspx

101 Ibid.

102 Ibid.

103 ”Microsoft Supply Chain Code of Conduct,” Procurement, Microsoft (2018), https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/

procurement/supplier-conduct.aspx

104 Motion of Defendant Honda of America Manufacturing, Inc. to Dismiss Plaintiff Michael A. Denoewer’s First 

Amended Complaint Honda Motion to Dismiss, Denoewer v. UCO Industries Inc. and Honda of America 

Manufacturing Inc., Case No.: 2:17-cv00660-GCS-KAJ (S.D.OH 2018).

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 129
105 Ibid.

106 Ibid.

107 U.S. v. Rhode Island and City of Providence, Interim Settlement Agreement, available at https://www.ada.gov/

olmstead/documents/ri-providence-interim-settlement.docx; U.S. v. Rhode Island, Consent Decree, available 

at https://www.ada.gov/olmstead/documents/ri-olmstead-statewide-agreement.docx

108 “RI DD Employment and Day Activity Data Summary,” Statewide Summary 2017, Quarter 4. Paul V. Sherlock 

Center on Disabilities, Rhode Island College.

109 “Quarterly Status Report on Court Ordered Placements for the Period Ending September 30, 2016,” 

Information and Technical Assistance on the American with Disabilities Act, U.S. Department of Justice (March 

2, 2017), https://www.ada.gov/olmstead/documents/ri_reports/55-Quarterly%20Status%20Report%20on%20

Ct%20Ordered%20Placements%20for%20the%20Period%20Endin....pdf

110 “RI DD Employment and Day Activity Data Summary,” Statewide Summary 2017, Quarter 4. Paul V. Sherlock 

Center on Disabilities, Rhode Island College.

111 “Rhode Island Person-Centered Thinking Guide,” Paul V. Sherlock Center on Disabilities, Rhode Island College. 

Rhode Island Division of Developmental Disabilities (February 2018), http://www.ric.edu/sherlockcenter/

personcentered.html

112 Amado, A. N. “Friends: Connecting People with Disabilities and Community Members.” Minneapolis, MN: 

University of Minnesota, Institute on Community Integration, Research and Training Center on Community 

Living (2013), https://ici.umn.edu/products/docs/Friends_manual.pdf

113 Timmons, Jaimie. “Maine’s Peer-Support Training: Helping People with ID/DD Transition Out of Sheltered 

Workshops,” Institute for Community inclusion, University of Massachusetts Boston (2018), https://www

.communityinclusion.org/article.php?article_id=303

114 “Customized Employment Competency Model,” ODEP, Department of Labor (2011), https://www.dol.gov/

odep/pdf/2011cecm.pdf

“Discovery [means] [g]athering information from the job seeker and the [employment] support team (a 

group of multiple partners, including the employment specialist who all jointly take some responsibility 

for the job seeker’s needs; however, the job seeker is the ultimate decision maker) to determine the job 

seeker’s interests.”

115 “Massachusetts Blueprint for Success: Employing Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities in Massachusetts,” 

State of Massachusetts (November 2013), https://www.mass.gov/files/documents/2016/07/qc/blueprint-forsuccess.pdf

116 Ibid.

117 Id. at para. 16.

118 “Employment First: Outcomes and Successes,” pp. 3–4, 5, Oregon Department of Human Services (October 

2017), https://www.oregon.gov/DHS/EMPLOYMENT/EMPLOYMENT-FIRST/Documents/EF_Outcomes_

Successes_October_2017.pdf; “Lane v. Brown Semi-Annual Report,” p. 8, Table 3, Oregon Department of 

Human Services (February 28, 2018), https://www.oregon.gov/DHS/EMPLOYMENT/EMPLOYMENT-FIRST/

DataReports/Lane_v_Brown_Semi_Annual_Report_2-28-18.PDF

119 “Lane v. Brown Semi-Annual Report,” p. 8, Table 3, Oregon Department of Human Services (February 28, 

2018), https://www.oregon.gov/DHS/EMPLOYMENT/EMPLOYMENT-FIRST/DataReports/Lane_v_Brown_

Semi_Annual_Report_2-28-18.PDF

120 Ibid.

121 MV Advancements, https://mvadvancements.org/

122 Tualatin Valley Workshop, https://www.tv-workshop.com/

123 Washington Initiative for Supported Employment, https://www.gowise.org/

124 “Supported Employment Manual,” p. 16, Oregon Office of Vocational Rehabilitation (March 14, 2017), https://

apps.state.or.us/Forms/Served/re1724.pdf

130 National Council on Disability
125 “Supported Employment Manual,” p. 26, Oregon Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, (March 14, 2017), https://

apps.state.or.us/Forms/Served/re1724.pdf

126 WIOA, Pub. L. No. 113–128, 128 Stat. 1425, 1633–34 (2014). 34 C.F.R. § 361.5(c)(32); RSA TAC 06-01 (2005).

127 “Oregon stakeholder meeting,” interview with the council. Portland, Oregon, July 31, 2018.

128 O.R.S. § 279 et. seq. See also JWOD, 41 U.S.C. § 8501 et. seq.

129 “MV Advancements Site Visit”, interview with The Council. July 30, 2018

130 “Oregon stakeholder meeting,” interview with the council. Portland, Oregon (July 31, 2018).

131 A. Cohen-Hall, “Washington Substitute Senate Bill 6384” (March 3, 2012), http://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/

biennium/2011-12/Pdf/Bills/Senate%20Passed%20Legislature/6384-S.PL.pdf “Washington State’s WorkingAge Adult Policy,” Institute for Community Inclusion (2007), https://www.communityinclusion.org/article.

php?article_id=222

132 “Washington State Employment Report,” p. 2, WISE, June 19, 2013, https://www.gowise.org/resources/

employment-first/washington-state/

133 “State Employment Snapshot: Washington,” State Data, Institute for Community Inclusion at the University of 

Massachusetts–Boston, https://www.statedata.info/statepages/Washington

134 “State Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) Agency Data” and “VR Closures with an Intellectual Disability (ID),” 

Washington: Integrated Employment Closures (2018), State Data, Institute for Community Inclusion at the 

University of Massachusetts–Boston, http://www.statedata.info/data/showchart/803215

135 “Data and Resources to Inspire a Vision of Employment,” Washington State Data, Drive Disability 

Employment (July 2017), http://drivedisabilityemployment.org/washington#quicktabs-states_big_screen=1

136 Data provided by representatives from Developmental Disabilities Administration, Washington State 

Department of Social and Health Services (July 2018).

137 Morningside Services, www.morningsideservices.com

138 Able Opportunities, https://www.ableopps.com/

139 Harrison Medical Center, https://www.chifranciscan.org/harrison-medical-center-bremerton.html

140 Chinook Enterprises, https://chinookenterprises.org/

141 Lighthouse for the Blind, http://thelighthousefortheblindinc.org/

142 Job Fading is a process used after a supported employee has learned a task or set of tasks. It is at this point 

that the job coach begins to reduce the person’s dependency on the job coach’s supports that the employee 

has needed in order to learn a task, assisting the supported employee to expand his or her self-sufficiency in 

the job.

143 Letter from Patricia Davidson, Deputy Administrator for Program Operations, Wage and Hour Division, U.S. 

Department of Labor to the Honorable Elizabeth Warren (July 5, 2018).

144 Wage and Hour Division Data provided to the Council in connection with this report in July 2018.

145 Letter from Patricia Davidson, Deputy Administrator for Program Operations, Wage and Hour Division, U.S. 

Department of Labor to the Honorable Elizabeth Warren (July 5, 2018).

146 Ibid.

147 Eve Hill, Regina Kline, and Curtis Richards, “Preparing Transition-Age Youth with Disabilities for Work: What 

School Leaders Need to Know About the New Legal Landscape” (2018), http://iel.org/sites/default/files/

Preparing-Transition-Age-Youth-with-Disabilities-for-Work.pdf

148 John Butterworth, et al., “State Data: The National Report on Employment Services and Outcomes,” Institute 

for Community Inclusion, University of Massachusetts–Boston (2012), http://communityinclusion.github.io/

book12/pdf/bluebook2012_final.pdf

149 “Special Minimum Wage Program, Centers Offer Employment and Support Services to Workers with 

Disabilities, But Labor Should Improve Oversight,” U.S. Government Accountability Office (September 2001), 

https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-01-886

150 The screen reader that was brought to market as JAWS in 1995 actually stands for Job Access With Speech, 

allowing blind and visually impaired users to unlock a text-to-speech or refreshable Braille display function.

From the New Deal to the Real Deal: Joining the Industries of the Future 131
151 Dr. Anthony Antosh, “Interview Discussion with Rhode Island Provider Agency Directors” (2018). See also

Pennsylvania National Core Indicators Data.

152 Dr. David M. Mank, “Employment Planning Questionnaire” (1994). Administered at Morningside Services in 

Olympia, Washington.

153 Klaus Schwab, “Shaping the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” p. 24. World Economic Forum (2018).

154 Ibid, p.30.

155 Disability:IN is a national organization, with 160 corporate partners, committed to empowering business to 

achieve disability inclusion and equality. See https://disabilityin.org

156 WIOA regulations, 20 C.F.R. § 678.435; 34 C.F.R. §§ 361.435,463.435.

157 29 U.S.C. § 794(g)(c)(1)(B) (Section 511(c)(1)(B) of the Rehabilitation Act, as amended by WIOA).

158 Ibid.

159 “Medicaid Managed Care for People with Disabilities: Policy and Implementation Considerations for Federal 

and State Policymakers,” Appendix G at 175. National Council on Disability, https://www.ncd.gov/rawmedia_

repository/20ca8222_42d6_45a5_9e85_6bd57788d726.pdf

160 Ibid.

161 See Social Security Administration Program Operations Manual System, SI 02301.205 Suspension and 

Reestablishing Eligibility.

162 “Expedited Reinstatement,” Social Security Administration (2018), https://www.ssa.gov/disabilityresearch/wi/

exr.htm

163 “Social Security Beneficiary Statistics,” Social Security Administration (2018), https://www.ssa.gov/oact/

STATS/DIbenies.html

164 “Medicaid Eligibility through Buy-In Programs for Workers with Disabilities,” Kaiser Family Foundation 

(2018), https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/medicaid-eligibility-through-buy-in-programs-forworking-people-with-disabilities/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Locat

ion%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D

165 “Adapting Motor Vehicles for People with Disabilities,” National Highway Traffic Safety Administration 

(June 2015), https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.dot.gov/files/documents/adapting_motor_vehicles_

brochure_810733.pdf

166 Lyft, Average Rates & Costs to Ride, available at https://estimatefares.com/.

For example, while costs vary from city to city, Lyft rides have average initial costs of $0.90, average 

service fee of $1.90, average $.09 per-minute charge, and average $0.90 per-mile charge, with an 

average minimum fare of $3.50.

167 Erik W. Carter, Diane Austin, & Audrey A. Trainor, “Factors Associated with the Early Work Experiences of 

Adolescents with Severe Disabilities,” Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities 49, no. 4 (2011): 233–247. 

DOI: 10.1352/1934-9556-49.4.233

132 National Council on Disability
National Council on Disability 

1331 F Street, NW, Suite 850 

Washington, DC 20004