The ADA vs. Opportunity
Monday, July 17, 2017
In a book review of Russell Redenbaugh's Shift the Narrative, John Tamny notes that its author, blinded during high school, might not have had much of a chance to prosper had the Americans with Disabilities Act been law shortly after his graduation:
[B]arriers to Redenbaugh's self-reliant, working narrative continued to reveal themselves. While his fellow classmates were inundated with suitors during year two, Redenbaugh "had forty-nine job interviews and not a single offer." Finally Cooke & Bieler, a then small investment counseling firm in Philadelphia made him a Wharton-style hard pitch: they offered him a job while telling Redenbaugh that "if it doesn't work you'll have to leave." By the 1970s, Wharton's first blind MBA was the firm's chief investment officer, partner, and its biggest revenue producer.Like countless unskilled workers who are willing to compete on price and are shut out of the labor market by minimum wage laws, disabled Americans (and their potential employers) are being robbed of opportunity by being legally barred from making themselves more competitive.
Interesting here is that Redenbaugh notes how the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) would have rendered illegal Cooke & Bieler's conditional offer. Despite that, he laments the ADA's passage. Redenbaugh believes a principal driver of rising unemployment for the disabled springs from firms being reluctant to take risks on them in the first place. It's difficult to hire those whom it's similarly difficult to fire.
That the government feels the need to stick its nose into any contractual agreement between consenting adults (that doesn't violate individual rights) is bad enough. The fact that it does so in the name of "helping" someone with a disadvantage -- and makes things worse than they already are -- is an outrage.
-- CAV
P.S. In the name of even-handedness, I must acknowledge the following:
[T]he architectural standardization brought on by ADA requirements, he mentioned, which tend to put things like door handles (easier to manipulate than knobs) in rote places, were a boon for unauthorized entry.So, to be fair, the ADA actually does create opportunities for some people.
6 comments:
Another group that has done well under this pernicious Act are lawyers. There is a subset of ambulance chasers who make money by using disabled individuals to shakedown small businesses about their lack of ADA compliance. It is a total scam which bankrupts many of these firms. That article you linked was disturbing. I had no idea ADA requirements have made buildings structurally unsound and easy to break in. YIKES!! Most of all it keeps those with disabilities as perpetual victims, unable to be self-sufficient.
Bookish Babe
BB,
True, and that isn't to mention the various bureaucrats in charge of manufacturing and enforcing these regulations.
Gus
"I had no idea ADA requirements have made buildings structurally unsound and easy to break in."
It also leaves them vulnerable in case of emergencies. Take, for example, fires--to be in compliance with the ADA you can have elevators, which are disabled upon activation of the fire alarm. Which means anyone unable to get down stairs on their own power (such as those in wheelchairs) is trapped in the upper stories in the case of a fire. But no one considers that, since regulation has replaced thought in the construction industry.
Dinwar,
If I recall correctly, an elevator is unsafe in a fire, anyway, and their convenience under normal circumstances would see them installed with or without Big Brother issuing marching orders, so I don't see an issue with the ADA here.
Or am I missing something?
Gus
"Or am I missing something?"
This isn't really about elevators; it's about the fact that the ADA is limiting options, and encouraging risky situations. The ADA has limited options for complying with accessibility standards, and the one most places opt for (elevators) demonstrably does not work for the people the ADA ostensibly protects at the one time you really, really need it to.
In other words: The ADA doesn't care if disabled people are actually safe. The regulation actually and demonstrably encourages building practices which put handicapped people at risk.
Dinwar,
So you're objecting to the ADA allowing elevators at all, or not mandating elevators that work in a fire regardless/not overriding fire codes?
Might the automatic feature you mention be fitted with an override? I seem to recall seeing provision for a key on the control panels of elevators labeled for operation during a fire.
Gus
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