


Is it ever right to pay disabled workers pennies per hour?
It is legal to do so in most American states
IN A SMALL building on Hi Hope Lane, Jeffrey Pennington sits at a desk packing ten-piece sets of zip ties. A diagram on a piece of paper helps him count before he drops the ties into a resealable bag and begins again. Mr Pennington, who has Down’s syndrome and autism and struggles to speak, once dreamed of waiting tables at Wendy’s, a fast-food joint. Today he is one of 77 disabled people working in “the shop” at Creative Enterprises, a Georgia non-profit. Mr Pennington and his co-workers assemble allergy-test and home-repair kits for big companies. Each week Mr Pennington proudly takes home a pay cheque, but after about ten hours’ work it amounts to only about $3.00.
Explore more
This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “The zip ties that bind”

Donald Trump is attacking what made American universities great
More than Middle East Studies is in trouble

How Donald Trump is shaping other countries’ politics
He is boosting the centre and centre-left and delighting the hard right

How (and why) J.D. Vance does it
The vice-presidency is a famously terrible job and Donald Trump a famously bad boss. And yet
The Trump train slows
Results from Florida and Wisconsin suggest a familiar pattern in American politics
Will Elon Musk’s cash splash pay off in Wisconsin?
A judicial race has become a referendum on the billionaire’s behaviour
DOGE comes for the data wonks
America may soon be unable to measure itself properly