GAO Releases Report on Barriers to Competitive Employment

As part of our work ensuring Medicaid disability providers are represented in disability policy discussions, last year ANCOR staff participated in conversations with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on transitioning from subminimum wage settings to competitive employment. Those conversations helped inform a newly-released GAO report titled Subminimum Wage Program: Factors Influencing the Transition of Individuals with Disabilities to Competitive Integrated Employment.

GAO summarizes the report as such: “Employers are allowed to pay less than minimum wage to certain people with disabilities. Often, they work in segregated settings where their co-workers also have disabilities. Recent federal policy calls for maximizing opportunities for people with disabilities to earn competitive wages in non-segregated settings.

We interviewed state officials and disability employment experts to identify 32 factors influencing whether and how people can transition to competitive integrated employment. For example, a major factor they cited was the sufficiency of state resources for services to help people transition to this kind of employment.”