Testimony on House Bill 225 — Katie Hunt Thomas, The Ability Center

Summary

Testimony of Katie Hunt Thomas, Director of Advocacy and Disability Rights Attorney for The Ability Center, to the House Commerce and Labor Committee on House Bill 225, dated May 14, 2025. The testimony states that in 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) was passed and contains an exception that permits an employer to pay people with disabilities less than minimum wage. It states that Governor Kasich issued an Executive Order in 2012, declaring Ohio an Employment First state, and that since the beginning of Employment First, subminimum wage positions have dropped by 80%. It states that the bill phases out subminimum wage over a five year period, which it calls the longest phase out in the country.

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                        Testimony to the House Commerce and Labor
                                       House Bill 225
                                        May 14, 2025

Thank you Chairman Johnson, Vice Chair Lear, Ranking Member McNally, and members of the
House Commerce and Labor Committee for the opportunity to testify on House Bill 225. My
name is Katie Hunt Thomas and I am the Director of Advocacy and Disability Rights Attorney
for The Ability Center, a Center for Independent Living covering 13 counties in NW Ohio.
Personally, I am also the sister of a 37 year old woman who has Down syndrome, Maggie. As
both a lawyer and sibling, I believe this bill is vital to modernizing our disability system and
fixes an inequity – the fact that many workers with disabilities in Ohio are permitted to recieve
less than minimum wage for their work. We should join the other states who have taken action
on this issue.

Sub-minimum wage is an outdated legal provision that was once intended to uplift workers with
disabilities but is no longer necessary. Ohio no longer needs subminimum wage to help people
with disabilities find work. In 1938, the US Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act
(FLSA) to help people get to work. FLSA contains an exception that permits an employer to pay
people with disabilities less than minimum wage as a work training incentive. Yet the landscape
of policy for people with disabilities, and for workers in general, back then, was very different.
The idea of a minimum wage itself was radical, and there was opposition to passing FLSA at all.
More relevantly, at the time, the federal government still had a policy of institutionalization for
people with disabilities – people with disabilities were shut away in institutions, often from birth,
and were not permitted in the community. There was little other job training available, and
people with disabilities were not permitted to be educated. They were turned away from schools
as uneducable. We, as a country, have come so far since then.

In the next 87 years, policies and laws surrounding disability have changed drastically. The
1960s and 1970s brought the de-institutionalization movement and the civil rights movement.
The Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, now the IDEA, made it unlawful for
schools to refuse to educate people with disabilities. This led to people with disabilities being
able to graduate from high school and college. Laws like as Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act
and Americans with Disabilities Act opened the community up to folks with disabilities. They
also prohibited employers from refusing to hire a person solely because of their disability and
required them to provide reasonable accommodations in the workplace. With the change in U.S.
laws, workers with disabilities can now grow up in the community, get an education, get job
training, and also get a job. The idea that the work of people with disabilities is worth less than
that of someone else may have, at one time, been helpful, but it is no longer needed.
The landscape of disability services in Ohio has also changed since 1938 to support workers with
disabilities in community jobs. Ohio’s unique system of 88 County Boards of Developmental
Disabilities were established in 1967 by Governor James Rhodes. Our County Boards of DD,
among other things, help provide case management for people with developmental disabilities in
Ohio including help with employment. Ohio has a vocational rehabilitation agency, the OOD,
which helps workers with disabilities find employment. Finally, in 2012, Governor Kasich issued
an Executive Order declaring Ohio an Employment First state, an initiative to create better
opportunities for working people with disabilities. The Employment First initiative made
community employment the first choice for people with disabilities in Ohio. Since the beginning
of Employment First, subminimum wage positions have dropped by 80%, and as of 2016,
approximately 29% of workers with disabilities were in integrated, community-based
employment. Employment First also dedicated more resources to the OOD.
My sister, Maggie, is one personal example. Maggie has Down syndrome. Yet she has never
worked in a sheltered setting or workshop and has always worked in the community. She
attended the local public schools in our area. After graduating, she entered a program called
Project Search, which placed her in four community job placements and then helped her pick one
for her job. She worked at a hospital, in a day care, in a food court, and in her last placement, at
the Carranor Club in Perrysburg, Ohio. She worked at the Carranor Club for ten years. There, she
laid table cloths and set the tables for fancy lunches, did the dishes, and did whatever else was
needed. When she needed help on the job, the County Board set her up with a job coach that
helped her. She got to know the owner of the club, the staff, and the regulars that came in. The
Kiwanas Club would give her a Christmas bonus every year. A few years ago, she moved to
Steubenville, Ohio, where she now works in the food court at the Franciscan University of
Steubenville.

Through her work, Maggie has gotten to know a wide variety of people, and they have gotten to
know her. She has also learned a wide variety of valuable skills. For example, at our family get-
togethers, she knows how to set the table, folding napkins in a fancy, accordion-style way. No
one else can do this. She is proud of the way that she can help, and she likes getting her paycheck
too.

Because of her disability, Maggie works part time -- she doesn’t have the stamina to work full
time. When she isn’t working, over the years, she has spent time in Day Habilitation settings,
camps, and volunteering. In her off time, sometimes she stays home, and sometimes she takes
the bus to see friends or get a pedicure. Maggie’s entire work life has been at minimum wage.
All of the businesses she has worked for have valued her skills, her work ethic, and her attitude.
She knows that she is contributing in a way that is different from her volunteer activities, and she
is proud of herself. She utilizes Ohio’s Medicaid Buy-In Program. Because she is working, she
pays a premium to have access to Medicaid services.
In sum, the federal law that permits employers to pay workers with disabilities less than
minimum wage may have been a work incentive at one time, but our laws and our disability
systems have moved past that. There are now federal laws that have made our community more
accessible and that protect workers with disabilities. Our disability system in Ohio has a bevy of
supports available to people with disabilities to help them get education and work. If there are
those who may not be able to work, or work full time, there is a system of supports in place that
is not going away.

Our bill is a well thought out, reasoned bill, that tries to meet everyone’s needs. It phases out
subminimum wage over a five year period, the longest phase out in the country, and offers
supports to people currently earning less than minimum wage and businesses who operate on that
model. Now is the time for us to join other states in phasing out subminimum wage.

Thank you this committee for the opportunity to testify today. I hope you will join us in our
excitement that Ohio is prepared to take this step towards prioritizing employment opportunities
for people with disabilities.


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