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Reference.org
Sheltered workshop
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<p>The term sheltered workshop refers to an organization or environment that employs people with <a href="/facts/Disability/vr9BPUxo">disabilities</a> separately from others, usually with exemptions from labor standards, including but not limited to the absence of <a href="/facts/Minimum_wage/KhbtVClf">minimum wage</a> requirements. </p><p>In the <a href="/facts/United_States/P0sCdLe5">United States</a>, an <a href="/facts/Fair_Labor_Standards_Act_of_1938/cHdvz44w">exemption</a> in the <a href="/facts/Fair_Labor_Standards_Act_of_1938/cHdvz44w">Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938</a> allowed a lower <a href="/facts/Minimum_wage/KhbtVClf">minimum wage</a> for people with disabilities, intended to help disabled <a href="/facts/World_War_I/vITTUanQ">World War I</a> veterans have opportunities for employment. Since then, <a href="/facts/Non-profit/AmXu2c85">non-profit</a> organizations have hired disabled workers in sheltered workshops, with about 300,000 individuals working in this arrangement in 2015. At the end of the 20th century, a <a href="/facts/Disability_rights_movement/0Co9E6wp">movement</a> to end sheltered workshops gained traction, with supporters stating that the jobs pay low wages, lack advancement training and opportunities, permanently trapping disabled people in those jobs while reducing their independence, and are discriminatory because they segregate disabled workers into separate work environments. Disability service providers, many parents, and disabled workers themselves support the workshops and state that eliminating the minimum wage exemption would eliminate those jobs and the choice to work (because many with <a href="/facts/Intellectual_disability/IuuYXdT1">severe disabilities</a> will never be able to perform at the level of an ordinary worker) and thereby prevent disabled people from enjoying the many non-wage benefits of work (like a sense of pride for their societal contribution), and replace it with adult day care. By 2023, fourteen states had passed laws banning subminimum wages. </p>