This article quotes federal sources as they read on 14 September 2026 and describes two bills that were not law on that date. It names no employer, gives no figures, and says nothing about what any particular person is or is not owed — a question about one worker's pay belongs with the federal Wage and Hour Division or a lawyer, and a question about how a change in pay would affect benefits belongs with free WIPA counselling, which our guide explains. Innovative Placements is a connector — we help people with disabilities find work in Western New York — and we are not lawyers.
Most families first meet the phrase "special wage" the way they meet most things in this field: sideways, in a conversation about something else, from somebody who half-remembers it. It is worth knowing properly, because it is one of the few places where the arrangement a person is in can be checked against a public record rather than taken on trust.
What the Certificate Is
The Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division describes it in one sentence:
"Section 14(c) of the FLSA authorizes employers to pay wages below the federal minimum wage to workers who have disabilities for the work being performed, but only after receiving a certificate from WHD."
Three things in that sentence matter to a family. The wage is tied to the work being performed, not to the person in general. The employer, not the worker, holds the certificate. And it is only lawful after the certificate is issued, which means there is a record of it.
The Wage and Hour Division publishes a list of certificate holders on its website, searchable and downloadable. For each employer it shows the certificate type, the application type, the certificate's status with its start and end dates, and, in the Division's own wording, "the number of workers with disabilities who were paid subminimum wages by the certificate holder during their most recently completed fiscal quarter." The page is careful to say the list is "not a census of subminimum wage employment," because it is built from what employers wrote on their applications. But if you have been told a family member is on a special wage, the employer's name should be on it, and if it is not, that is a question worth asking in writing.
What the Law Requires Alongside It
This is the part families most often do not know, and it is the part with the most practical use. The lower wage does not come alone. The same Wage and Hour page says:
"WHD also enforces compliance with Section 511 of the Rehabilitation Act, which requires that workers with disabilities receive career counseling and referral services on a regular basis in conjunction with their subminimum wages."
"On a regular basis" has a definition. The federal regulation that implements Section 511 says a state's vocational rehabilitation agency must provide career counselling and information and referral services to individuals with disabilities employed at a subminimum wage, regardless of age, and it sets the schedule: once every six months during the first year of subminimum wage employment, and once a year after that. The regulation also says how the counselling must be delivered: in a way that "facilitates independent decision-making and informed choice as the individual makes decisions regarding opportunities for competitive integrated employment." In New York, the state agency in that role for most people is ACCES-VR.
If a family member is paid under a certificate, there should be a counselling session on the record at least every six months in the first year and every year afterwards, delivered by the state agency rather than the employer, and aimed at the person's own choices about ordinary employment. When was the last one, and who provided it? is a fair question, and the answer is either a date or a gap. A gap is a compliance matter, not a family matter, and the Wage and Hour Division is the body that handles it.
The same part of the federal regulations sets additional conditions before a worker aged 24 or younger can be paid a subminimum wage at all. If the person is young, ask what was done before the arrangement began, not only what has been done since.
Where the Federal Rule Went
You may have read that the federal government was ending the program. It proposed to. On 4 December 2024 the Department of Labor published a proposed rule in the Federal Register that would have phased out the issuing of 14(c) certificates. On 7 July 2025 it published a withdrawal of that proposal, and its Section 14(c) page now states that the Department "has discontinued the rulemaking process and removed the proposal from further consideration."
So as of the retrieval date the certificate program continues in federal law, exactly as the first quotation describes it. Anything you read suggesting the federal phase-out is underway is describing the proposal of 2024, not the position of 2026.
Where New York Stands
New York has its own bills, one in each chamber, that would end subminimum wage in state law. On 14 September 2026, according to the legislature's own website:
Senate bill S28C was in the Senate Committee on Disabilities, with its most recent action recorded on 21 April 2026.
Assembly bill A1006B was referred to the Ways and Means Committee, with its most recent action recorded on 7 January 2026.
Neither had passed either chamber. Both carry the same effective-date clause: the law would take effect on "the thirty-first of December next succeeding the date upon which it shall have become a law." In plain terms, even on the day a governor signed it, nothing would change until the end of the following December.
Two cautions. First, bill status changes, sometimes quickly at the end of a session, and the only reliable source is the legislature's site on the day you look. Second, while researching this article we found a confident online claim that New York's law "takes effect" on a specific date in 2026. The legislature's pages showed both bills in committee. A date attached to a bill is not a date attached to a law, and the difference is the whole point.
What This Means for a Family
None of the above tells you whether a particular arrangement is good for a particular person. It tells you what can be checked, and it gives you three checks that do not depend on anyone's goodwill.
1. Is the employer on the Wage and Hour Division's list? If a family member is said to be on a special wage, the certificate holder should be there, with a status and dates.
2. When was the last Section 511 counselling session, and who delivered it? Every six months in the first year, yearly after, by the state agency, aimed at the person's own choices.
3. What does the person want? The counselling exists precisely so that a worker on a subminimum wage keeps hearing about ordinary employment at ordinary pay. If the answer is that they would like to try it, that is a job search, and it is the kind we do.
One more thing belongs here because it is where families get hurt. A move from a subminimum wage to an ordinary wage changes a person's income, and a change in income can interact with benefits. That is not a reason to stay put; it is a reason to get free benefits counselling before the change rather than after, from a counsellor working from the person's own record. It is why this article contains no figures, and it is what the WIPA guide linked above is for.
Where to Take It
If the person is still in school or newly out of it, the conditions for younger workers mentioned above sit alongside the transition process described in our guide to moving from school to work, and the two are worth reading together. If the arrangement is already in place and going well, last week's article is about how a family's role changes once it is; the counselling schedule above is one more thing an adult employee is entitled to ask about for themselves, and one more thing a family can help them prepare to ask.
And if any part of this has turned a rumour into a question, the Wage and Hour Division, the state agency and the legislature's own pages are where the answers live. We have tried to make each one findable from this page. That is the most a guide like this can honestly do.