workers were not capable of producing much. My daughter had to have hands on help to do anything. She is now retired but still goes out to the shop for company. In fact I never wanted her to work but the state required it.

She seldom made more than $5 a week. The point of her attendance was to socialize and take part in the PT exercises etc.

How does this effect many clients in a workshop. Most are already getting a social security disability check each month. So you give them a job that raises their monthly income. Many then lose their Medicaid/Medicare coverage because their income is too high. If they get enough money they may even lose the social security check because they can work. So then all the have is a job (often a contract job that only lasts till it is completed.) So now they have a job and a maybe a social security check and have lost the one thing that they need desperately - medical coverage.

As a case manager I often had to limit the hours the client could work to keep them on medical coverage. So for some higher wages means less work.

In a sheltered workshop the goal is seldom getting enough money to support yourself. The goal of work is more often the feeling of fulfillment that comes from being able to do something everyone else can do - have a job. In my daughters case they extended her PT program to encompass the work she did. While she worked she exercised her arms and hands.

What I am saying here is that at least for this one group of disabled persons who work in sheltered workshop programs this new bill will not help them. I also know that there are some in society who it will help. So hopefully they will take this into account.

Maybe with tax incentives and rights equal to others, advancement can occur. Many people may live in small towns where there are no such workshops.

part of MN is that many of the workers will be told that they are no longer eligible to attend the workshop because they work so few hours. Our state requires that the shop provide work for the clients - but if the clients cannot work they cannot attend. This is a state requirement. Only this year they agreed to allow older workers to retire but continue to attend. To the state this is about work but that is not what it is about to the clients.

Workers already get a tax incentive to be hired. For most of that 45 there is no advancement. Their mental capacity is not able to allow that.

I am interested in how this works out in that state. See what problems they face and how they are going to handle them. Hopefully they will not just return to the old ways of the institutions where there was nothing constructive to do.

One day, our families may face no discrimination if I live that long.

Sounds like they had to pass a law banning people from breaking the law

as long as your workers have disabilities.