Who Receives the Special Minimum Wages?

The United States Department of Labor wage and Hour Division has a certificate that authorizes the payment of special minimum wages to employees with disabilities for the work they are doing. The authority to disburse the prescribed minimum wages to workers having disabilities is applicable to work covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), McNamara-O'Hara Service Contract Act (SCA), and/or Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act (PCA). These kinds of special wages are called as "commensurate wage rates" and are actually lesser than the basic hourly rates mentioned in an SCA wage determination and also lesser than the FLSA minimum wage of $7.25 per hour beginning on July 24, 2009.

In general, a particular "commensurate wage rate" is fixed on the basis of the individual productivity of the worker irrespective of how limited it is considered in proportion to the wage and productivity of experienced employees without any disability that impair their productivity while doing the same type, quality and amount of work in the same geographical community from where the labor force of the company is drawn.

For the purposes of disbursing commensurate wage rates under this certificate, an employee with disability can be defined as follows.

A person whose productivity or earnings is impaired by a physical or mental disability including age factors or injury in connection to the work to be performed.Disabilities that might hinder the productive capacity like blindness, mental illness, drug addiction, productive capacity for the purposes of disbursing commensurate wages include educational disabilities, non-attendance at the school, juvenile delinquency, chronic unemployment, receipt of welfare benefits and correctional parole.Non-disabled worker standard means the objective gauge used to measure. This is generally the time study of the productivity demonstrated by the non-disabled workers used to comparatively measure the productivity of a worker with disability.Prevailing wage rate refers to the wages given to the experienced employees without disabilities that can impair their productivity for the same work or similar work and who are involved in such a work in that area.Evaluating the disabled worker's productivity must involve recorded measurement of the disabled worker's production in terms of quality and quantity. Periodically, the employers must revise the commensurate wages paid by the employees with disabilities. For instance, the productivity of hourly paid workers must be re-evaluated at periodic intervals. Once in six months, the productivity of hourly paid workers must be reevaluated and new wage survey must be conducted not less than once in a year. As and when the federal minimum wage is increased, the prevailing wages must be reviewed accordingly.

Those employees, who are performing work that is subject to the FLSA, SCA, and PCA, must be paid not less than 1 times their regular rate of pay for all the hours worked by the employee more than 40 in a week. Those employees who are minors younger than 18 years of age must be employed in adherence to the child labor provisions of FLSA. No individuals under 16 can be employed in manufacturing related works or on a PCA contract. Every employee with disability must be informed orally and in writing by the employer regarding the terms of the certificate under which he or she is employed.

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Becky Roberts has published 4 articles. Article submitted on May 30, 2013. Word count: 533