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Census bureau drops renovation of disability questions, an Oregon County’s Law enforcement approach to mental health has led to litigation being filed, new progress has been made in Kansas regarding subminimum wage for people with disabilities, and we’ll talk with one of our nation’s most renowned disability law experts, on the latest Supreme Court Case concerning Disability.
Today we begin our expanded report the latest developments in the disability community.
We at Disabulletin understand the expectation of fairness excellence and accuracy in delivering to you a meaningful report on the happenings of disability in our nation and we intend to meet it.
In a world where disability consists of multiple definitions, each interpretation may be met with a variety of reactions. Such was the case last week, when the United States Census Bureau announced that proposed changes to how it would define disability in its 2025 Community survey would be dropped.
Such changes, were first announced last October and would reword the six questions regarding disability in the survey.
Currently, the disability census questions ask respondents to answer “yes” or “no” if they experience “difficulty or “serious difficulty” with vision, hearing, concentration, and decision-making and in performing everyday activities walking, climbing, dressing, or bathing. If any are answered with yes, the subject qualifies as having a disability.
However, according to opponents of the new survey, a respondent would only qualify as an individual with a disability if they rated the level of difficulty they have performing multiple rather than individual activities on a scale from “no difficulty,” “some difficulty,” “a lot of difficulty” or “cannot do at all.”
Opponents argued that such a requirement would reduce the number of persons with disabilities accounted for in the survey, the Census Bureau’s largest in terms of data collection for determining federal funding for housing, healthcare, and civil rights. In a report by the Associated Press released February 7, “the percentage of respondents who were defined as having a disability went from 13.9% using the current questions to 8.1% under the proposed changes. When the definition was expanded to also include “some difficulty,” it grew to 31.7%”
In Disability Law news, the issue of law enforcement’s approach to individuals with disabilities has been brought to the legal forefront in Washington County Oregon, the state’s second-largest county. A lawsuit filed in Portland’s U.S. District Court by Disability non-profit Disability Rights Oregon contends that Washington County harms individuals with disabilities by sending armed police officers instead of “behavioral health teams” when assisting people during a mental health crisis.
The non-profit argues that the Washington County Sherriff’s office has become the default agency in said crisis since the county dispatcher system sends 911 calls for mental health assistance to police first. Although the county has a mental health response team, issues range from lack of nighttime availability to being called only after the police have been informed.
The suit was filed after Disability Rights Oregon conducted a year-long investigation with the state’s American Civil Liberties Union on the matter. After analyzing emergency call data, it was found that between 2020 to 2022, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office handled about 12,000 calls, but dispatchers only sent a mobile crisis team consisting of mental health experts for about 100 calls.”
In responding to news outlets about the lawsuit, County Spokesperson Julie McCloud expressed disappointment in the filing and cited the crisis team’s response to “more than 2,100 calls” in 2022. McCloud also cited a “successful” initiative in which deputies team up with clinicians.
Kansas is set to transition workers with disabilities away from segregated employment.. A bill signed by Kansas Governor Laura Kelly four days ago seeks to transition workers with disabilities away from participation in such a controversial labor practice and creates a grant program called the Sheltered Workshop Transition Grant, which provides tax credits for businesses that hire individuals with disabilities into integrated employment and “eliminates the minimum work-hour requirement for Kansans with disabilities to qualify for health insurance coverage.” For 85 years, a minimum wage has been set for Americans across the country. However, this wage is not the same for those with disabilities Since 1938, section 14c of the same act that first established a minimum wage for all Americans, the Fair Labor Standards Act, has qualified certain employers of workers with disabilities for certificates administered by the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division. If their application for such certificates is approved, employers can, under the pretense of preventing individuals with disabilities from being excluded from the workforce, pay a wage level below the federal minimum, a practice known as a subminimum wage. To set this wage, employers conduct a test within a disabled worker’s first month of employment. The test consists of timing how long it takes a person with disabilities to complete certain tasks when compared to an able-bodied worker’s efforts. The resulting number is then multiplied by the “prevailing hourly wage for the same type of work”. The final calculation is the worker’s productivity rate which is subject to change based on progress made over time and can be phased out if a worker with a disability reaches the same level of productivity as their non-disabled colleagues. One of the employers approved to pay subminimum wages is Community Rehabilitation Programs, previously known as Sheltered Workshops by the Wage and Hour Division. These programs offer both medical rehabilitation alongside employment for individuals with disabilities. Within the first month of employment and if approved for a certificate, CRP employers must determine a disabled employee’s productivity rate and review it every six months to determine whether to raise the worker’s wage. As of this year, 16 states have enacted legislation to phase out the practice of subminimum wage, with Kansas set to become the 17th to do so. On Capitol Hill in recent years, legislation passed has included the 2014 Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), which in Section 511 of the bill, requires that Community Rehabilitation program employers with a certificate provide career counseling during the first six months and annually thereafter of a disabled individual’s subminimum employment. As for those who favor subminimum wage, arguments include concerns that rising wages would increase labor costs, leading to the closing of such workshops and the unemployment of thousands in the disability community, which were mentioned on in a 2020 Report by the United States Commision of Civil Rights arguing for further regulation of subminimum wage (pg. 90). Since October, the Department of Labor has been reviewing the practice.
As covered in our previous episode, the Supreme Court case of brought disability advocates and business owners to the edge of their seats in ruling that a lawsuit filed by one Deborah Laufer. Although the case was declared moot by the Supreme Court as it had been previously dismissed before being brought before the court, the initial question concerned whether or not an Americans with Disabilities Act or ADA “tester” had legal standing to sue a place of public accommodation for failing to provide accessibility information on its website, despite having no intent on staying at said accommodation.
Today, I’ll be discussing the decision with William Goren, one of our nation’s most renowned experts on disability law.
This was the first part of a 30-minute interview conducted with Mr. Goren on the case of Laufer. Next week, we’ll conclude our discussion with Mr. Goren by discussing disability law cases on the horizon.
Disabulletin is created and produced by me, Abe Shapiro
Our theme is, “Baseball is More than a Game” by the George Romanis Sound.
Abe Shapiro, WFHB News, Live and Learn.
