Cotton bill would drop pre-employment requirements for young adults entering subminimum wage jobs; Texarkana nonprofit backs the change

TEXARKANA, Ark. — U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton wants to remove federal requirements that young adults with disabilities complete vocational rehabilitation and career counseling before they can work for less than minimum wage — a change one Texarkana provider says can’t come soon enough.

Cotton, R-Ark., introduced S.4984 on July 15. It targets Section 511 of the Rehabilitation Act, which since 2016 has required people with disabilities age 24 and younger to complete pre-employment transition services, a vocational rehabilitation review and career counseling before starting work under a Section 14(c) certificate. Those certificates allow employers, mostly nonprofit community rehabilitation programs — to pay workers with disabilities below the $7.25 federal minimum wage.

The bill, titled the Restoration of Employment Choice for Adults with Disabilities Act, would rewrite that provision so an entity may employ an adult 18 or older at subminimum wage if the individual chooses to accept the job. The remaining documentation requirements would apply only to those 17 and younger, and employers could satisfy the law’s ongoing career counseling requirement by showing the state vocational rehabilitation agency failed to provide the counseling after documented attempts to arrange it. A House companion is pending in committee.

The bill’s stated purpose is “to ensure workplace choice and opportunity for young adults with disabilities.” It has no cosponsors and awaits action in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Local provider: requirements sideline willing workers

Texarkana Resources for the Disabled supports the bill, CEO Jennifer Lewis told TXKtoday. The nonprofit holds an active 14(c) certificate covering 42 workers, according to U.S. Department of Labor records.

Lewis said the current requirements “can unintentionally delay meaningful vocational opportunities for young adults with disabilities who are ready to begin building work skills immediately after high school.” The organization has seen graduates eager to join its vocational training program who couldn’t because they hadn’t completed the pre-employment requirements, she said.

“Watching motivated individuals lose valuable time during this critical transition period is both frustrating and heartbreaking for families and providers alike,” she told TXKtoday.

The legislation “expands options rather than limiting them,” Lewis said. Not everyone has the same goals or timeline for entering community employment, she said, and some families choose structured vocational settings partly because asset limits tied to Medicaid programs like Arkansas’ Community and Employment Supports (CES) Waiver can penalize higher earnings.

Lewis also pointed to the organization’s Supported Employment Program, which places individuals in competitive community jobs, saying that option “should always be encouraged, supported, and available to those who choose that path.”

The organization recently celebrated one of those transitions. A client named Johnny, referred to Texarkana Resources three years ago by the Literacy Council, built friendships in the program and served the community through its Aktion Club before landing a job at Rocketfast Car Wash through Supported Employment. “This is what happens when organizations work together to lift people up,” the organization said in announcing the milestone.

Disability rights groups have defended Section 511

Congress created the Section 511 requirements in 2014 as a guardrail meant to steer young people toward competitive integrated employment — jobs at or above minimum wage alongside workers without disabilities — before they enter subminimum wage settings. Disability rights groups have long argued that few workers who enter sheltered workshops ever transition out.

Disability Rights Arkansas, the state’s federally designated protection and advocacy organization, had not responded to a TXKtoday request for comment as of publication. This story will be updated if a response is received.

Arkansas ranks near the bottom nationally in disability employment. Roughly 32% of working-age Arkansans with disabilities are employed, compared with about 76% of those without, according to the Annual Disability Statistics Compendium.

Arkansas among the nation’s heaviest users of 14(c)

A TXKtoday review of the Labor Department’s most recent 14(c) certificate list, published June 1, found 36 active certificates in Arkansas covering 1,619 workers paid subminimum wages in the employers’ most recent fiscal quarter — ninth-most in the nation. Nationally, 582 certificates covered about 31,270 workers, down from roughly 700 certificates and 39,000 workers in late 2024.

Nearly all Arkansas holders are community rehabilitation programs, along with four state-run human development centers. Conway Human Development Center is the state’s largest at 176 workers; Booneville follows at 117.

Texarkana Resources is the only certificate holder in the immediate Texarkana area. Nearby holders include Rainbow of Challenges in Hope (75 workers) and Howard County Children’s Center in Nashville (77), and southwest Arkansas as a whole accounts for roughly 450 of the state’s subminimum wage workers.

Worker counts are self-reported by employers, and one certificate can cover multiple work sites. No active certificates exist on the Texas side of the state line; the nearest are in East Texas.

Federal phase-out effort reversed last year

The bill arrives a year after the Labor Department abandoned an effort to end 14(c) entirely. The department proposed in December 2024 to phase out the certificates over three years, then withdrew the proposal in July 2025 after more than 17,000 comments, concluding it lacked authority to end a program Congress mandated.

Certificates continue to be issued — Texarkana Resources’ runs through November 2027 — leaving any change to Congress, where Cotton’s bill would ease the path in. More than a dozen states have banned or limited subminimum wages for workers with disabilities. Arkansas and Texas are not among them.