Labor Department documents reviewed by NBC News revealed that the charity Goodwill paid some of its disabled employees as little as 22 cents an hour. The practice is enabled by a 1938 law intended to encourage employers to hire disabled workers. Under the Special Wage Certificate program, a charity or company may obtain a certificate that gives them discretion to pay disabled workers based on their abilities. Goodwill executives defended the program, maintaining that it enables the charity to hire employees with severe disabilities that would otherwise not have a job.
See "Some Disabled Goodwill Workers Earn As Little As 22 Cents An Hour As Execs Earn Six Figures: Report", Jillian Berman, The Huffington Post, June 23, 2013