Is it ever right to pay disabled workers pennies per hour?

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.