Minimum Wage Rules for Workers With Disabilities

What the certificate actually allows

Section 14(c) lets an employer apply for a certificate permitting payment below the federal minimum wage to workers whose earning capacity is impaired by a disability for the particular work being performed. The permitted rate is meant to be commensurate with productivity. That is established by measuring the worker’s output against the standard for an experienced worker without a disability doing the same job in the same locality. The phrase to notice is “for the work being performed” — the provision is about a specific job rather than about a person in general.

That last mechanism is worth understanding because it is where most of the argument lives. The employer conducts time studies, establishes a prevailing wage for the work, and pays a proportion of it corresponding to measured output. In principle that is a productivity-based wage; in practice the measurement is done by the party paying it, and the standard against which it is measured is chosen by the same party.

The provision dates from 1938 and its original rationale was employment access. The argument was that some people would not be hired at all if employers had to pay the full minimum, so a reduced wage was better than exclusion from work entirely. Whether that argument still holds is now the central question in the whole debate. The answer offered by the states that have abolished the practice is that it does not, and their experience is the strongest evidence anybody has either way.

What happened to the phase-out

In December 2024 the Department of Labor proposed a rule that would have ended new 14(c) certificates and phased out existing ones over a transition period. It attracted roughly 18,000 comments. That is an unusually large number for a rule of this scope, and it reflects how strongly both sides feel rather than how many people the provision directly touches. Disability advocacy organizations, provider networks and families all filed in volume, and not all on the same side.

The rulemaking was formally withdrawn on 7 July 2025. That means the proposal was discontinued rather than defeated in court, and the existing framework simply continues unchanged. If you are reading anything published between December 2024 and mid-2025, it will describe the phase-out as forthcoming, and a great deal of that writing is still online and still ranks well.

The practical position today is that the certificates remain lawful under federal law and nothing is currently scheduled to change that. A future administration could propose something similar again, and given the history it probably will at some point. That is worth knowing and it is not the same thing as a plan in motion. Treat the current federal position as stable until something specific replaces it.

The states moved anyway, and that is the bigger story

Federal permission is not the operative question in a growing share of the country. More than sixteen states have ended subminimum wage for workers with disabilities under their own law, and the list has grown steadily rather than in a single wave. Where a state has done that, the federal certificate has nothing left to authorize. A state can always be more protective than federal law, and a 14(c) certificate does not override a state minimum wage.

So the answer to “can I be paid below minimum wage because of a disability” is increasingly a state question rather than a federal one. That is the first thing to establish and it takes about two minutes. It is a direct lookup on the state labor department’s own page rather than something you have to infer from the federal position, and the federal position is what almost every national article leads with.

The state-level movement has also been bipartisan in a way the federal debate has not been, which is part of why it proceeded steadily while the federal rule stalled. Several states legislated with transition funding attached rather than simply prohibiting the practice. The reasoning was practical: ending it without supporting the employment programs built around it would remove the jobs rather than raise the wages, which is nobody’s stated objective. Whether the funding has been adequate is a separate and live argument.

The direction of travel is clear even where the law has not moved

The number of certificate holders tells the story better than the legal position does. Around 5,600 employers held certificates in 2001; by 2024 that was roughly 800. That is a decline of about 86 percent over a little more than two decades, driven by state legislation, by funding models shifting toward competitive integrated employment, and by employers deciding the arrangement was no longer defensible.

What that means for anybody encountering this in practice is that the arrangement is now unusual rather than typical. An employer proposing it is doing something the large majority of employers stopped doing, for reasons that are well documented and easy to look up. It is entirely reasonable to ask why, and to ask what alternatives were considered before this one was offered.

What to check if this affects you or somebody you support

Start with the state, because it may settle the question outright. If your state has abolished subminimum wage, the full state minimum applies regardless of any certificate. If it has not, the certificate itself is a public matter — the Department of Labor publishes lists of certificate holders, so you can establish whether the employer actually holds one.

Then look at the mechanics, because these are where errors concentrate. The commensurate wage must be based on the prevailing wage for the work in that locality, not on the minimum wage. Productivity must be re-evaluated periodically rather than measured once at hire. And the worker must be told how the rate was calculated. Any of those failing is a compliance problem independent of whether the certificate is valid.

It is also worth asking what alternatives exist locally. Supported employment and customized employment programs place people in ordinary jobs at ordinary wages with support attached, and in most states these are now the funded default rather than the exception. Somebody being offered a subminimum arrangement may have an option nobody has mentioned.

How to think about the argument itself

The case for keeping the certificates is that some people with significant disabilities would otherwise not be employed at all, and that a job at a reduced wage is better than no job, no structure and no colleagues. The case against runs on three points: that the productivity measurement is unreliable, that it is conducted by the party paying the wage, and that decades of experience with supported employment show a great many people placed in subminimum settings can work in ordinary jobs at ordinary pay. The third point is the one that has moved the argument.

Both of those are arguments made in good faith by people who work with disabled workers every day, and the disagreement is genuine rather than manufactured for anybody’s benefit. What has shifted the balance is the accumulated evidence from the states that ended it. That evidence has not produced the collapse in employment the strongest predictions expected, though it has produced real transition difficulties in places where the funding did not follow the legislation.

This is general information about how the provision works rather than legal advice about your situation. State law varies substantially and is the more likely to be decisive here, so your state labor agency or a disability rights organization in your state is the place to go — both will answer a question without any obligation to file anything.