• funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Fortunately we have this thing called “Democracy” in the USA which means “if you don’t like something you can be involved in the process of changing it.”

        If I recall correctly there was a big brouhaha in the late 1700s w/r/t “we should change how this country is run somewhat.”

        Would you have advised Washington, Jefferson and Franklin to have moved elsewhere rather than stand up to King George?

        Should Lincoln, Grant et al have left America instead of fighting against the Confederacy?

        How about Martin Luther King? Alice Paul? Thomas Paine? Elizabeth Stanton? Susan B Anthony.

        • grayman@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Sorry but no. The USA is not a democracy. It’s a republic. It’s in the pledge if you’re old enough to have said that in elementary school.

  • HeckingShepherd@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I think for a lot of people it’s about having some place to go during the day that they don’t have to pay for. If someone is unable to work a regular minimum wage job but is able to do simple tasks it could be either be stay at home and do nothing everyday or having either the government or the family pay for care. This allows a company to provide the supervision and a place for safe social interaction. People in these programs get to feel like an actual member of society rather than just a burden on their family. They can have something to do all day and come home and talk about their day at work instead of what they watched on TV. It’s unfortunate that they can’t provide enough value to justify a company to pay minimum wage but at least this way they get to have some money to help their family with bills or spend on their hobbies.

    • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      That’s why you pay them minimum wage or more and get a kickback from the government, that ends up being cheaper for everyone in the long run and you’re not exploiting them.

    • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      There are volunteer positions for anyone wanting to simply just do something through the day.

      If EMPLOYERS want to have these people on staff, they should pay them. Period. We give people minimum wage regardless of their job. Whether a toilet scrubber, trash handler, or floor mopping person, these are all jobs worthy of minimum wage.

      If a job needs to be done and they need to hire someone to do it, that person should get minimum wage, regardless of who it is, what their situation is, etc.

      If companies really want relief about this stuff, maybe they should lobby for the wages that they spend on differently capable persons to be offset with a tax break or something… Let that person go home with a full paycheque. Twisting this into doing everyone a favor for giving those people something to do, is the same mentality that was used to enslave entire races. People literally thought that some races didn’t have the intellectual capability to handle their business, so by enslaving them, we were doing them a favor. The justification was always insane, they thought that by providing the bare minimum of food for their table and a space to sleep, they were entitled to own that person. It’s fucked up.

      Now we’re trying to justify paying them less or not at all because they operate different to NT people?

      … I’m sorry, that’s a twisted and toxic perspective.

      • tour_glum@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I worked with in a garage where they employed someone to valet the hire fleet. He was incredibly slow but did a decent job. Half his wage was paid for by a government agency, he was originally on an unpaid work experience thing and the agency asked the boss if he would hire him. He said no so they offered to partially fund his wages so boss said ok. This is similar(better imho) but there are people you simply would not employ (unless you are doing it for charitable reasons) because you can get someone else for the same money.

    • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      It’s unfortunate that they can’t provide enough value to justify a company to pay minimum wage

      What’s unfortunate is when people don’t understand that everyone, even mentally disabled persons, deserves a living wage at minimum.

      No one is paid based on the actual “value” they provide to a company. If that were the case, CEOs would be paid a fraction of what they’re currently paid, and the lowest paid workers would make multiple times more than what they currently make.

      • HeckingShepherd@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I agree CEO compensation is really messed up but I don’t thinks it’s really relevant. A company gets to decide how much they value labour and if someone’s work isn’t enough to justify paying them they simply won’t have a job. I know it’s awful to pay less than a living wage but it’s important to remember these people are almost universally living with their family or in group homes. The options are really only either they don’t work or they work with a company paying less than minimum wage. Obviously the government subsidizing the wages is an option but I’m not sure if that’s the best use of resources. Would it not make more sense to directly subsidize families and group homes based on economic need.

      • Aux@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        What’s unfortunate is that you don’t believe that the government should fully cover all the needs of disabled people and their “job” is not for money, but to become a part of a collective, bring some value for the community and feel alive. They shouldn’t need any salary, just the possibility to be useful and helpful to others.

      • nanoUFO@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I agree but why would a company employ people with learning disabilities when they could employ people without learning disabilities and pay them the same amount. Think there is a bigger underlying issue. Governments should incentivize employing these people so it becomes a non issue.

  • SuddenDownpour@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    If there could be a reasonable debate on this, we could argue: A) Even with accomodations, some people are going to be so unproductive that companies cannot justify hiring them at minimum wage -> B) Therefore, the government could subsidize their salary so that they have the option to contribute and earn their own salary.

    Unfortunately, due to the pervasive interests of business, implementations of these solutions tend to result in companies suckling out of the teat of the state, underreporting on the actual productivity of their employees, and often putting them under the orders of managers who patronise them and barely see them as humans, with the subsequent issues that this provokes on one’s daily life.

    And this is even without getting into the terrain of people who do have the capacity to be productive, but society doesn’t care about enabling that possibility. Think of people with reduced mobility who are perfectly capable of working in an office, but HR will immediately discard their application without bothering to study if they could be a good fit for the company; or autistic people, who require different sensory and social accomodations (neurotypical have sensory and social accomodation requirements too, but since they’re the norm, this tends to be ignored), and will be immediately assumed to be problematic even when they could be more productive than their allistic counter-parts.

    I don’t mean to be defeatist, however. It is not impossible to achieve a proper integration of diversity.

    https://www.eldiario.es/catalunya/casa-batllo-gaudi-emplea-50-personas-autismo-pequeno-milagro_1_10085306.html

    Specialisterne helped Casa Batlló, a tourism-oriented cultural space in Barcelona, to employ and integrate 50 people on the spectrum, and everything has kept working reasonably well over there since then. This is notable because it is a common conception in business that you can’t or shouldn’t employ an autistic person to attend the public, but folks over there are literally getting paid to infodump tourists.

    Unfortunately, I don’t know how it’d be possible to systemize the good work Specialisterne and other well educated and well intentioned groups are doing, without attracting nefarious actors that just want to get public funds even if they do a shit job.

  • CryptoRoberto@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    If minimum wage was a wage that a single income earners could support an entire household on, as it was original intended still, I might get this argument. With minimum wage being an unlivable joke, paying less is essentially slavery and textbook exploitative.

    • webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      The alternative is they get paid just as much as everyone else, receive some extra cash from the government because being disabled can carry big hidden costs most people don’t realize.

      The insensitive for the business is a tax break so the disabled worker does cost them less overall, they NEED this extra bit of what otherwise would be tax money to make reasonable changes to integrate the peoples special needs. After which its easier to hire more disabled people meaning more tax breaks.

      Gonna take a personal stance that if 80% of your workers are officially disabled you shouldn’t need to pay tax at all. Helping these people is enough contributing to society to be ethical.

      This isn’t a perfect system but its similar to how many countries do it and its miles better then forcing them into wageslavery.

      Paying the disabled worker less is a complete upside down work because they have to work so much harder to get the same result. Remember your wage isn’t just a reflection of your output, otherwise it wouldn’t be an hourly rate. Its a reflection of the time and energy your body is putting into it every day.

  • paysrenttobirds@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Such individuals include student-learners (vocational education students), as well as full-time students employed in retail or service establishments, agriculture, or institutions of higher education. Also included are individuals whose earning or productive capacities are impaired by a physical or mental disability, including those related to age or injury, for the work to be performed.

    This is such a weird group of exemptions. Full time students, presumably while paying tuition and housing themselves and completing 20 hours of coursework per week; and specifically in exactly the types of part time or seasonal jobs full-time students could take? What is the rationale? I know this happened to me in college–the university itself paid less than minimum wage for virtually any jobs done by students.

    It seems to me you have the choice of paying high taxes and socializing everything; paying EVERY worker a living wage with room to cover a dependent or two and having a functioning capitalism; or earning enough for yourself to fly to Mars and avoid the guillotine while the world crumbles in despair. Why do so many choose space?

    • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Does this not already exist in the states?

      I had a retarded uncle, not a slur, just something that happened before they were aware of the second baby Rh pheonemona. And they paid him like $3 an hour to make fishing lures. I think somehow it’s a program that helps pay for services and stuff that supported him. But it always seemed really bad to me, although I lived on the other side of the country so no idea what the “services” entailed.