When the state-run asylums closed, people thought the era of warehousing disabled Americans was over. It wasn't. We just rebranded it. This temporary New Deal carve-out quietly morphed into a multi-billion-dollar parallel economy of "sheltered workshops." The reality is, the open market wasn't built to absorb the cost of human care, so the government literally became the primary buyer of segregated labor. It’s an economic structure built entirely on keeping people out of sight so we don't have to deal with them. But how deep does this pipeline go, and who is really profiting off of labor that is legally classified as "therapy"?

Join our community of evidence-seekers on Instagram @newstandardpod. Subscribe to our newsletter for exclusive data, studies, and more content at newstandardpod.substack.com. Hosted and produced by Armon Owlia.

We love to talk a big game about the American mission statement—that everyone is created equal. But frankly, the data shows a different reality. In 1938, the government built a trapdoor into the minimum wage specifically for disabled workers. Under Section 14(c), human output is reduced to a mechanical stopwatch measurement, dictating a person's worth down to the fifth decimal point. The result? A legally sanctioned underclass trying to survive on a fraction of the minimum wage while facing a massive "disability tax" just to exist in this society. When you look at the stark wealth gap between a non-disabled household and a disabled one, you realize the floor isn't broken—it's working exactly as designed.

Join our community of evidence-seekers on Instagram @newstandardpod. Subscribe to our newsletter for exclusive data, studies, and more content at newstandardpod.substack.com. Hosted and produced by Armon Owlia.

There is one paragraph in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 that still allows some disabled workers to be paid less than the federal minimum wage—sometimes pennies per hour. It is called Section 14(c).

In Season One of RECORD, ARMON OWLIA follows the fight over that exception: the workers whose pay it shaped, the institutions that used it, the advocates who fought to end it, and the difficult question of what happens when states eliminate it without tracking where workers go next.

The official story is that Section 14(c) protects access to work. Its critics say it institutionalizes exploitation. The record is more complicated—and the people living inside that gap are often the least visible.

BELOW MINIMUM premieres September 15.

Reporting notes and transcripts: recorddesk.substack.com

Follow for documents and updates: @recorddesk on Instagram

Subscribe to RECORD wherever you get your podcasts.

Most of what shapes your life runs on rules you were never taught to read.

RECORD is an investigative journalism series about how institutions decide what becomes official, what gets ignored, and who pays the price. Each season follows a single public system — a wage law, the points in your wallet — through the records, timelines, and documented outcomes between what the institution claims and what the evidence shows.

* Reporting notes and transcripts: recorddesk.substack.com

* Follow for documents and updates: @recorddesk on Instagram

* Subscribe to RECORD wherever you get your podcasts