For decades, the employment conversation for adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities (IDD) has had two default answers: subsidized work in a sheltered workshop, often paying subminimum wage, or no work at all. Neither option was ever meant to be a finish line. Both were treated as if they were.

A third path has been quietly gaining ground, and it's reshaping what's possible for adults with IDD who want more income, more independence, and more control over their own work life: the gig economy. Flexible, task-based work — the kind that doesn't require a traditional 9-to-5 structure or a single, fixed job description — is opening doors that subsidized employment models were never designed to open.

This isn't a claim that gig work is a perfect solution, or that it's right for everyone. It's a look at what's actually happening, where the real opportunity lies, and what it could mean for adults with IDD in Ohio who are ready for more than what the traditional system has offered them.



1. Why Subsidized Work Often Caps Income — and Independence

Subminimum wage employment for people with disabilities has existed in the United States since a provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act passed in 1938, originally intended to encourage employers to hire workers with disabilities by allowing wages below the standard minimum. Decades later, that same provision still allows certified employers to pay workers with disabilities based on individually measured productivity, sometimes resulting in wages of just a few dollars per hour, far below what the same work would pay in the open labor market.

Beyond wages, many subsidized work settings offer limited variety in tasks, minimal opportunity for advancement, and little connection to the broader local economy. Workers often perform the same narrow set of tasks for years, with few pathways to expand their skills, increase their pay, or transition into more independent employment, even when they're capable of significantly more.

There's also a structural issue that compounds the problem: the so-called "benefits cliff." Many adults with IDD rely on Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Medicaid for essential support, and these programs include income thresholds that, once crossed, can trigger a steep reduction in benefits. For some individuals, earning more from work can mean losing healthcare coverage or other essential supports, creating a perverse incentive to stay below an income ceiling rather than pursue genuine economic advancement.



Gig work, structured thoughtfully, can offer a way around some of these constraints — not by eliminating the benefits cliff entirely, since that remains a real and serious policy challenge, but by offering income flexibility, variety of tasks, and a level of autonomy that traditional subsidized employment models rarely provide.



2. What Gig Work Actually Looks Like for Adults With IDD

Gig work covers a wide range of task-based, flexible employment — far broader than the rideshare and delivery apps most people picture first. For adults with IDD, the gig roles that tend to work best are often ones matched carefully to individual strengths and interests, supported by family, job coaches, or community organizations who help with logistics like scheduling, transportation, or initial skill-building.

Some adults with IDD have found success in micro-task platforms that break work into small, clearly defined units — data entry, content tagging, simple digital tasks that can be learned step by step and completed independently once mastered. Others have built small service-based gigs within their own communities: pet care, yard work, craft production sold through local markets or online platforms, each allowing a person to play to specific strengths rather than fit into a one-size-fits-all job description.

What distinguishes successful gig arrangements isn't the specific task — it's the fit between the work and the individual. A person with strong attention to detail and a preference for repetitive, predictable tasks might thrive in a data-focused gig role. Someone with strong social skills and a love of animals might build a thriving pet-sitting practice. The flexibility of gig work allows for this kind of individualized matching in a way that a fixed sheltered workshop job rarely can.

Crucially, many adults with IDD who've moved into gig work report not just higher income, but a meaningfully different sense of ownership over their work. Setting their own schedule, choosing which gigs to accept, and seeing a direct connection between effort and earnings can be genuinely empowering in ways that traditional subsidized employment structures often aren't designed to provide.



"Have confidence that if you have done a little thing well, you can do a bigger thing well too." — David Storey

This doesn't mean gig work is easy or automatic. Most successful arrangements require real support in the early stages — help identifying the right fit, building specific skills, and navigating logistics like payment platforms or scheduling tools. The independence gig work offers is real, but it's rarely achieved without some structured support to get there.



3. What's Needed to Make This Path More Accessible

For gig work to become a genuinely viable path for more adults with IDD, several pieces need to come together. Job coaching and transition support need to expand beyond their traditional focus on conventional employment to include gig-specific skill building — things like managing irregular income, navigating digital platforms independently, and developing self-advocacy skills for negotiating with clients or customers directly.

Family and caregiver education matters enormously here too. Many families simply haven't been told that this path exists as a real alternative to subsidized work, in part because the traditional service system is built around conventional employment models and hasn't fully caught up to the gig economy's growth. Awareness alone can open doors that families didn't know existed.

Policy reform remains a critical piece of the puzzle as well. The benefits cliff issue isn't something gig work alone can solve, and meaningful progress will require continued advocacy for policies that allow people with disabilities to increase their earnings without an abrupt loss of essential healthcare and support services. Until that structural issue is addressed, even successful gig income will continue to create difficult tradeoffs for many individuals and families.

Finally, the gig economy itself needs more intentional bridge-building — platforms, local marketplaces, and community networks specifically designed to connect adults with IDD to gig opportunities that match their skills, with built-in support structures rather than leaving individuals and families to navigate mainstream gig platforms entirely on their own.



Building That Bridge in Cleveland

This is precisely the gap Rising Heights Work is designed to address. We're building a model that goes beyond simply pointing people toward subsidized employment as the only option, creating real pathways to flexible, task-based work matched to individual strengths — paired with the coaching, family support, and community connection that make gig work genuinely sustainable rather than just theoretically available.

We believe adults with IDD in Northeast Ohio deserve more than a ceiling on their income and their independence. They deserve a path that recognizes their actual capabilities and connects them to real economic opportunity, on terms that work for them.

If you're a family exploring employment options for an adult with IDD, or a local business interested in gig-based hiring (in person or virtual), we'd like to talk with you.

Reach out at natalie@risingheights.org , or join our interest list to stay connected as we build this work alongside housing, care, and community.