Doug Crandell, "Twenty-Two Cents an Hour: Disability Rights and the Fight to End Subminimum Wages" (Cornell UP, 2022)

Mar 21, 2026

Doug Crandell, a public service faculty member and long-time disability advocate, discusses subminimum wages and the disability industrial complex. He contrasts public perception with hidden workplace abuses. He recounts historic reforms, language that masks exploitation, organizing campaigns, and alternatives like customized employment and inclusive postsecondary programs.

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INSIGHT

Benevolent Brand Masks Subminimum Wage Reality

Large nonprofits like Goodwill present benevolence publicly while operating as major purveyors of subminimum wages.
Crandall cites a Freedom of Information finding that some workers earned as little as $0.22/hour while executives earned high six-figure salaries.

ANECDOTE

Burton Blatt's Photos Sparked Deinstitutionalization

Burton Blatt covertly photographed institutions and published Christmas in Purgatory, exposing atrocious conditions.
Blatt mailed the book to every member of Congress and helped spark deinstitutionalization and community Medicaid reforms.

INSIGHT

Branding Hides Employer Role Of Workshops

Language rebrands sheltered workshops as industries or rehab programs to normalize segregation and obscure employer status.
Crandall notes average tenure in workshops is 21 years, contradicting the rehabilitation claim.

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In Twenty-Two Cents an Hour: Disability Rights and the Fight to End Subminimum Wages (Cornell UP, 2022), Doug Crandell uncovers the harsh reality of people with disabilities in the United States who are forced to work in unethical conditions for subminimum wages with little or no opportunity to advocate for themselves, while wealthy CEOs grow even wealthier as a direct result. As recently as 2016, the United States Congress enacted bipartisan legislation which continued to allow workers with disabilities to legally be paid far lower than the federal minimum wage. Drawing on ongoing federal Department of Justice lawsuits, the horrifying story of Henry's Turkey Farm in Iowa, and more, Crandell shows the history of the policies that have led to these unjust outcomes, examines who benefits from this legislation, and asks important questions about the rise of a disability industrial complex. Exposing this complex—which is rooted in profit, lobbying, and playing on the emotions of workers' parents and families, as well as the public—Crandell challenges readers to reexamine how we treat some of our most vulnerable fellow citizens. Twenty-Two Cents an Hour forces the reader to face the reality of this exploitation, and builds the framework needed for reform.

Doug Crandell is Public Service Faculty at the Institute on Human Development and Disability at the University of Georgia. For more than thirty years he has worked in disability advocacy, specifically the intersection of employment, economic justice, and much-needed systems change. Doug Crandell is the author of several book and novels, inlcuding most recently "They're Calling You Home."

My co-producer for this episode is Shea Tripp, a graduate student in the Department of Communication, Journalism and Public Relations at Oakland University.

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