- Disabled people get paid (what is supposed to be, but not actually, a living wage) by the government, so they aren’t living on the wage.

- No company would hire them if they were forced to pay minimum wage, because companies are greedy and would always hire a more productive non-disabled worker.

- Many disabled workers want to work not for the pay, but because they enjoy the work and/or want to feel productive. As stated, they get paid by the government, so in theory they don’t have to work if they don’t want to.

With the caveat that disability payments outside of work should be raised, so that nobody (disabled or not) feels like they must work a too-boring or too-hard job to afford a decent standard of living (unless absolutely necessary for society to subsist, but that’s another discussion)…I think it’s a great practice.

Maybe there are good arguments against it, but a good argument needs to provide the full context.

If it is bellow ""living wage"" it should not be allowed.

(that was easy)

You can find other workarounds to incentive the hiring of disabled people and we (in italy) have a few:

-Requirement of medium and big firms to hire them (reduced ability, they can still perform)

For example where i work there is a janitor that has dawn syndrome and an IT guy with dwarfism

-tax breaks (so the worker still get paid minimum wage but to the company he costs less)

However, tax breaks sound better.

I worry that requiring companies to hire disabled workers, instead of just making it profitable to do so, would cause more workers to be abused. Every method has some abuse from bad actors, but a requirement specifically influences companies who wouldn't hire disabled workers even if they could assign zero tasks to them and financially benefit.

Can we justify giving disable people less rights?

Sure.

Let me tell you _a modest proposal_ .

If you think they should both be paid the same, who should pay the additional cost?

The taxpayer, in the form of a direct wage subsidy. Comes out to virtually nothing compared to the amount of corporate welfare we shovel out every day. The company still isn't compelled to hire the disabled person if they won't be effective on the job, but companies that were inclined to hire them before still will, pay the same amount as before, and we taxpayers will pay the price tag of a bomber or two to ensure that some people have some independence and dignity.

Which of course is why such a thing will never happen here.