EXPERT UPDATE Year One of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act
This year, we not only celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), but also the one-year anniversary of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA). The law, passed in July 2014, aims to help job seekers – including those with disabilities – access the services they need to succeed in employment and match employers with skilled workers.
At the same time, people with disabilities all over the country, who work really hard every day, are in segregated places earning a subminimum wage. It is not that all people who are working are mostly in segregated settings. It is that people who are making subminimum wage are mostly in segregated settings. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit in Oregon taking on the whole issue of the ADA regarding sheltered workshops, real wages and real work. So while WIOA is taking on competitive employment, the DOJ is addressing minimum wages and sheltered workshops.
The WIOA Advisory Committee
WIOA established the Advisory Committee on Increasing Competitive Integrated Employment for Individuals with Disabilities. It is charged with making recommendations to the Secretary of Labor to increase competitive integrated employment for people with disabilities. This committee established for WIOA’s implementation includes 17 experts in disability employment and seven federal agency leaders.
Agency leaders from Social Security, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Employment and Training, Department of Labor and Rehabilitation Services Administration are all sitting at the table with us. These people are high enough up in the food chain that they can actually say, “Now that’s something we could start working on.”
One of the provisions of WIOA calls for is a unified state plan across Medicaid, developmental disability agencies, the mental health agency, vocational rehabilitation and the education department. WIOA’s advisory committee, in the past year, has made specific recommendations for competitive employment. We published an interim report in September 2015 that included preliminary recommendations on this issue.
They concern building capacity for competitive integrated employment and specifically address transition from school to work, information on what the act means and guidance to states about how to implement it. Additionally, the committee addressed the complexity of funding sources and regulations. When we tell states to eliminate obstacles, build a unified plan to increase employment and work with employers, it’s helpful to provide specific guidance about how they can start the process.
There has also been stakeholder input with people coming forward and giving testimonies about what they like about WIOA, where it could be refined and which parts need more oversight.
The committee also addressed Section 14 (C) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which allows for subminimum wages. The disability population is the only population that can be paid unfairly in this country at a subminimum wage. How do we go about monitoring any use of these subminimum wage certificates? The committee wrote a chapter specifically on subminimum wages and how we thought they should be addressed – basically calling for them to be phased out or bringing them up to contemporary standards that provide competitive integrated employment for people with disabilities.
The States
States are required to build a transition plan because of the Home and Community Based Services settings rule that CMS put forward last year. Each state needs a plan for eliminating funding of segregated settings for people with disabilities over the next five years.
Specifically, WIOA calls for at least 15% of all state vocational rehabilition (VR) funds to provide pre-employment transition services to prepare people for post-secondary education and employment. It includes internships, trial work experiences, summer jobs and so forth – things that all kids do and so should youth with disabilities. In Georgia, one of the projects that the Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities (GCDD) and the Georgia Advocacy Office (GAO) have worked together on is youth transitioning from school to work using a discovery process as part of customized employment.
Some programs have already happened in Georgia around good customized employment, discovery and transition planning. The State has been working with the Department of Community Health along with a collection of other stakeholders to eliminate workforce segregation over the next five years.
The goal is competitive integrated employment. WIOA brings some clarity – and adds a little pressure – to getting people out of segregated employment programs. If the State focuses on increasing competitive integrated employment, you’re more likely to see a reduction in people in segregated employment programs. If you only focus on getting people out of segregated employment, they may wind up segregated in other kinds of day programs.
There is also a strong focus on youth transitioning out of schools to employment and articulating very clearly the roles of the school system, vocational rehab and the intended outcomes. This also diminishes the likelihood that another generation of youth is pipelined into segregated services.
The Big Picture
This is about clarity and accountability to make sure the outcomes are the same as those for people without disabilities – whether it’s youth or adults with disabilities. Accountability across agencies and the collaboration with employers is strengthened. There is also improvement of the whole workforce investment system. In the past, American job centers were called “one-stops” which weren’t responsive to people with disabilities. Now the improvements are strengthening that system as well.
GCDD, GAO, Georgia Vocational Rehabilitation Agency and others are working for an executive order to make Georgia an Employment First state – and using some of the tools of WIOA could really aid that implementation.
Advocacy
As advocates, it is important to become familiar with WIOA. What are the primary aspects of the act; what’s it focusing on in terms of transition for youth; how is it building capacity for competitive integrated employment in terms of using good, better and best practices; and what does it specifically call for so you can monitor what is going on in your state?
People who are really paying attention to youth should advocate for 15% of VR funds going to pre-employment transition services. Are kids still being referred to sheltered workshops? There are very specific steps outlined in Section 511 of WIOA that stipulates youth are supposed to be receiving transition processes that enable them to go into post-secondary education or employment.
Make sure that people with disabilities – who are required to be part of the process and need to be part of the process – are being included. And what is happening with the unified plan? Are the required agencies actually getting together? How transparent is their process? Are they getting any public input?
As we continue to enforce WIOA, we need to pay attention as advocates, and in Georgia, we want everybody to come out and advocate during the legislative session for Employment First.
RUBY MOORE is the executive director of the Georgia Advocacy Office. Moore also sits on WIOA’s Advisory Committee on Increasing Competitive Integrated Employment for Individuals with Disabilities.
For more information on WIOA’s Advisory Committee on Increasing Competitive Integrated Employment for Individuals with Disabilities, visit http://www.dol.gov/odep/topics/WIOA.htm
To read the 2015 Interim Report, visit http://www.dol.gov/odep/pdf/20150808.pdf
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