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Brian Williams
It's a part of American life, when something is no longer useful to you,

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you give it to Goodwill. You drop it in the Goodwill box,

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perhaps in the supermarket parking lot near you,

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and you've then done something good, with something you no longer consider good.

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You may know that Goodwill donation centers employ disabled workers,

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but you may not know that some of those workers are legally exempt from minimum wage protetection.

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That means that some end up making just pennies per hour.

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It is legal, but tonight, Harriet Smith takes on the question of fairness.

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Harry Smith: Goodwill, a place where you feel good about leaving your old clothes,

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a place where you feel good about shopping in a tough economy.

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Goodwill's mission is give jobs to people who are down on their luck, or have a disability.

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Goodwill does a lot of good, no question about it.

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But in back rooms like this one, in Great Falls, Montana,

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out of sight of donors and shoppers

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there is something going on that many disabled people do not feel so good about.

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People with disabilties working for less than the Federal Minimum Wage of

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of $7.25 an hour. There are even places in America where Goodwill workers

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earn as little as $0.22 an hour.
And because of a loophole in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938,

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it's all perfectly legal