CHARITY-PROGRAM ABUSES
March 8, 2006
A federal program to subsidize nonprofit organizations that hire severely disabled people to manufacture simple products, such as mousetraps and blackboards, is allowing some groups to pay some of the factories’ executives salaries of $350,000 or more while most of the disabled workers are paid less than minimum wage, reports the Newhouse News Service. The news service says that the program, which began 30 years ago and now receives $2.5-billion in federal support annually, suffers from a lack of oversight, with some factories unable to document their workers’ disabilities.
