A Modest Proposal for Autistic Employment




One of the toughest issues for adults with autism is chronic unemployment.  A fortunate few of us are able to work independently without supports or subsidies, but a terribly high percentage remain unemployed or underemployed, year after year.

All too often I hear of autistic geniuses – people with IQs of 150 or even higher – bagging groceries or sweeping floors because they could not navigate the social minefields of school and work.  It’s only by the grace of god that I am not one of those people.  Smart as folks say I am, I failed miserably in the social environment of every job I had.  That’s despite my technical competence. 

I see some of those same problems with other autistic adults who can’t get jobs at all, or get fired from every job they get, until they end up on social security disability, frustrated and cut off from the working world.   The same thing would have happened to me, if I had not had the good fortune to start a small business that succeeded.

It’s the lucky few of us who remain productively employed.  Many of us stay that way by the slimmest of margins.  Some of us succeed by finding tolerant or accommodating employers, and work we can do.  Others (like me) forsake traditional jobs to work for ourselves.   If we can meet the market’s demands, we prosper despite our eccentricities or even better - because of them.

The problem is, most disabled people aren’t very successful at employment, despite their best intentions, training, and unique skills.  In the autism community chronic unemployment and underemployment are one of our biggest challenges.  We talk about all manner of solutions, but ultimately, it comes down to this:

If we cannot do a given job as well – and as cost effectively - as someone who doesn’t have a disability, we are not going to get hired.   Actually, the bar is really higher.  As outsiders in the world of employment we need to be both better and cheaper to earn a place in the workforce.  Being equal is only good enough once you’re inside.

We’ve tried solving the employment problem several ways in America, with limited success.  One way or another, we run afoul of labor laws and regulations.  For example, other countries allow the creation of companies who employ autistic people (as an example) to do software testing.  In the United States that would be discriminatory, and they’d have to allow anyone to apply for those jobs, autistic or not.

Other countries allow companies to pay disabled people less than the minimum wage, or less than the market rate for a given task.  In the US, labor activists attack those sorts of programs as exploitive.  They paint the employers as villains who are taking advantage of a disabled population.

The result:  Unemployment remains distressingly high among our disabled and different population.  Yet we remain eager to contribute, and willing to work if only there is a place where we are wanted, needed, respected, and able to earn a fair wage doing meaningful work.  Something needs to be done.

I’d like to advance a modest proposal for how we might solve the employment problem, by giving people with disabilities special employment status, and awarding tax credits on a sliding scale to companies who hire us.

I call this Workforce Disability Credit, or WDC.

What if we allowed people to apply for WDC instead of or in addition to social security disability?  When applying, a person would pass a similar functional evaluation, but instead of being awarded a support check, that person would get a rating that he’d take to employers.

He might get a standard disability check until he found work under WDC, at which time his disability check would taper off or vanish to be replaced by a larger check from the employer.

No one would be forced to join WDC, but those who wanted to participate would have a subsidized path out of disability; something we cannot offer people today.  It wouldn’t work for everyone, but if it worked for some, it would be very worthwhile.

The person’s WDC rating would tell employers what sort of tax credit they’d get for hiring him (or her), to offset the added burden their disability might place on the company.  For example, a mildly disabled person might have a 30% rating, meaning the company would get a 30% credit for hiring him.

If they took a job that paid a nominal $20 per hour, the employer could pay the disabled person the $20 hourly wage and get 30% back as a tax credit.  Hiring a person with a 60% rating would get them 60% credit.  The worker would earn a market rate wage, and the employer would get a discount to make someone who might otherwise be less productive or more costly attractive.

If we tied that program to a tax credit program for creating jobs in America instead of exporting them to lower-wage nations, the effect would be even greater.

In one stroke, such a system would make mildly disabled people more attractive to employers and it would encourage them to seek work with the goal of eventually getting off disability entirely.

A system like this would accomplish several important things:
1 – It would bring jobs that have been outsourced overseas back to America when disabled people can do them effectively and efficiently, and American companies could take advantage of the tax credit to lower their costs.
2 – It would be tremendously beneficial to the self-esteem and well being of participants, by getting them off disability and into the productive workforce. 
3 – It would be a far better use of government dollars.  Money paid out in disability support does nothing for the economy.  Money paid out in employment subsidy builds the economy by building business.
4 – It would create incentives for American businesses to find ways to employ our more disabled population in productive occupations.  Today most of those people are unemployed with no real chance of sustained employment.

Some will say we have systems like this already, such as the existing tax credits to hire disabled veterans, and various state programs to hire people on support.  However, I propose two important differences:
1 – Give employers the tax credit right away, by deducting it from the weekly payroll tax deposit.  The present system, where an employer gets a tax credit the following April 15 when he files a return simply does not incentivize small businesses where cash is tight.  Furthermore, tying the tax credit to income tax effectively restricts the credit to businesses that make good profits – something that’s kind of rare among small business today.
2 – Make the credit something the employees apply for, so they can use it as an arrow in their quivers in the application process.  All too often, the credits we have today don’t get used because they are too complex, not well understood, and pay off too far in the future.

We can’t expect a local landscaper to hire three disabled guys in the summer, pay them all season, and then wait to get his $50,000 credit from the government next April.  And he won’t even get the whole fifty grand, if he doesn’t owe fifty in taxes.  How does he feel?  Simple - he won’t do it.  He will hire non-disabled workers and get his benefits in productivity and billings right now.

The present credit systems, which overlook that essential truth, are non-starters for those reasons.


The WDC might be capped at a certain dollar figure, and participants in the program might have their disability rating re-evaluated every few years.  It’s quite possible that many less disabled participants would work their way out of the program and end up as regular market rate employees.  Those who remained disabled would continue to qualify for subsidy, thereby remaining attractive to their employers indefinitely.

What do you think of this plan?  Could it work?  Would people embrace it?  Is it even remotely possible, given where our country is now?

I await your thoughts

John Elder Robison

Comments

Kimmyb610 said…
http://www.sba.gov/content/hiring-people-with-disabilities

I happened to find this amongst many links about hiring people with Diverse abilities.
Anonymous said…
You are always right "on the money", John, in this case both rhetorically and practically. Anyone who thinks people would generally rather accept free money than work hadn't spent much time with the disabled. You idea is excellent. I recall the days when we had much more aggressive vocational programs and see NO reason why we can't put those back into place. Everyone does NOT want to go to college, and we need many other societal functions executed than college is prepared to produce. I think that's a great idea.
John Robison said…
Kimmy, you are right that we have programs to hire the disabled, but none of them provide immediate cash credit to the employer and all impose significant administrative burdens which ensure 90% of small business will not bother with them

For a program to work it has to be easy, transferrable, and provide an immediate benefit to the employer to give the advantage to the disabled applicant in competition for a job

As always thanks for your thoughts
North said…
Hi John..Thank you very much for the post..I heard you speak in Pittsfield MA in 2008 at small gathering...I was in home volunteer for young child with Autism. You speak as you have lived your life which is truly important as advocate for the non typical neruo wired world (but what is normal but a setting on a dryer).

I want to digest more of your concept as to employment for adults on Autism Spectrum. Yes I feel that entitlements is not the road.

Looking forward in creating more dialogue with others on this concept...

Take Care John...

Kev said…
A very sound plan. I would like to see this in front of lawmakers.
Dan said…
It sounds very good. I'd offer to my knowledge there are two paths something like this can be promoted to legislation.

One is to package it up for a federal legislator to adopt, it would need a credible macroeconomic study to project its efficacy/impact, probable net benefit, on the country as a whole. To sell something like this, its key to get credible measures that speak to the net benefit it would achieve.

Two is the finding a sponsor in a specific State legislator, such as your local representative or perhaps the committee chair of your State's labor committee. That State then becomes a laboratory to test the idea. If it is successful in a specific State, there are a number of State-to-State groups that meet to suggest successful bills for adoption in fellow states.

Not sure if this is the input you're looking for, but I'd offer it sounds like an excellent idea - the only question is "does it have a latent disadvantage or group who might oppose it?"

Best,

Dan
Lindsay said…
I think it could work, maybe! What I know about tax policy or running a business could fill a thimble, but I do know that one reason employers don't hire us is they see us as riskier than non-disabled workers. This might help weight the balance of incentives a little more in our favor.

Good thinking.
IAMNOTADROID said…
Your commentary and proposal are a step in the right direction, but it still embraces the wrong model. It perpetuates the disability model where one is forced to go have a label tattooed across one's forehead that says to any employer and society at large that I am somehow less and unable to do certain tasks, even to the point of in some cases competing on a level playing field suggesting that I should be given special subsidies not afforded to everyone equally. This is simply Wrong. But until we as a society rid ourselves of a model based upon what people can't do and move to one based on the unique abilities of each person and candidate, not much will change.
gojirama said…
I think this is an excellent idea.
J said…
I like this idea very much. If you develop a plan to present and implement this, please allow those of us in other locations to partner with you in some way.

I volunteer to provide employment supportive services as a free service in my city, also working with our state's Workforce Development Center and take referrals from the local DVR office.

All that really means is that help people navigate the complications of finding employment and connections to social services, a process that can be difficult even when one is not dealing with extraordinary circumstances.
Valerie said…
Maybe not a finished idea, but an improvement. i followed Kimmy's link, and my first thought was, that if i were a business owner, i'd have enough headaches already to get into this. --Valerie, whose son is about to move from being public school student with autism adult in the real world with autism wondersandmarvels-wonderfull.blogspot.com
Forsythia said…
The family is just now beginning to think about the future, as our "Aspie" is just ten years old and, for the very first time, in a public school program designed to meet his needs. We often wonder what the future will hold for him. Will he always have to live with his parents? What happens after they are gone? I hope something like your plan is in place when that day comes.
Anonymous said…
A welcome step in the right direction, if national and sub-national governments can get their act together and implement this proposed agenda. It isn't like autism knows any borders.

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