US prison workers produce $11B worth of goods for ‘little to no pay'
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Incarcerated workers in the United States earn an average of 13 cents to 52 cents per hour across the country.
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US prison workers produce $11B worth of goods for ‘little to no pay.'
Despite producing nearly $11 billion in goods and services each year, incarcerated workers in the United States earn an average of 13 cents to 52 cents per hour across the country, according to a newly published report.
According to a new American Civil Liberties Union report released on Wednesday, prison wages are extremely low while the government takes up to 80% of the pay for room and board, court costs, restitution, and other fees, including prison construction and maintenance.
The report revealed that incarcerated workers produce more than $2 billion in goods and more than $9 billion in services for prison maintenance each year.
It added that the wage deductions leave workers with less than half of their gross pay, which they must use to cover the costs of their own hygiene products and medical care.
How will they live?
Almost 70% of incarcerated workers polled said they couldn't afford basic necessities on their prison wages. In addition, prison workers in seven states — Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas — are not compensated for the majority of their work.
The ACLU also found that more than 76 percent of incarcerated workers surveyed by the Bureau of Justice Statistics say that “they are required to work or face additional punishments such as solitary confinement, denial of opportunities to reduce their sentence, and loss of family visitation.”
According to the report, prisoners are allegedly "subjected to arbitrary, discriminatory, and punitive decisions by the prison administrators who select their work assignments."
Many incarcerated workers perform hazardous work in hazardous conditions. The true number of workers injured on the job is unknown due to poor data collection, according to the report.
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“Prison labor is inherently coercive and exploitative. Incarcerated workers are not protected by standard labor laws, like minimum wages, overtime protection, the right to unionize, and workplace safety guarantees,” according to the ACLU report.
The report's authors have demanded that prisons across the country raise incarcerated workers' wages in order for them to pay for expenses such as "child support, phone calls home, and commissary costs while supporting their families and saving for eventual re-entry into society."
They have also asked that the Constitution be amended to remove the 13th Amendment exclusion, which allows slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime.
More than 1.2 million people are currently incarcerated in state and federal prisons in the United States, with approximately two-thirds working in the prison system.
