And White Cane Coffee in Warren is helping him make the argument.

In addition to inviting CEO/Founder Erin Willman to address the Senate Select Committee on Aging, late last month, he stopped by the ship for a tour on Tuesday afternoon.

“Erin’s witness is a spectacular demonstration of what an employer can do to provide a fair wage,” Casey said. “For folks with disabilities that can work in a business and have an opportunity to have a successful business, her example is the best in the country.”

The bill Casey is pushing is the Transformation to Competitive Integrated Employment Act.

Times Observer photos by Josh Cotton US Senator Bob Casey with employees at White Cane Coffee during a stop on Tuesday. He’s advocating for a bill that would phase out sub-minimum wage pay for employees with disabilities.

“The bill is pretty simple,” he said, phasing out sub-minimum wage employment certificates over five years as well as placing a moratorium on the issuance of any new certificates.

Casey said the number of employers paying sub-minimum wage to disabled workers has decreased over the last 10 to 15 years.

“(There are) still too many in the country and across the state,” he said. “A lot of Americans would agree with me. It undervalues that individual.”

The threshold to get a bill through the Senate – 60 votes – is high but Casey cited Republican co-sponsorship that will aid in the effort.

“Because we have bipartisan support,” he said, “we have a shot at getting it passed.”

Casey said that he decided a couple years ago to focus on disability issues as part of the Select Committee on Aging.

A key piece of getting a bill like this across the line is education.

“A lot of legislators don’t know what you’re talking about when you say sub-minimum wage,” he said, calling the effort “as much an education of our fellow legislators as it is anything. For a lot of them it is a new issue.”

And he said he’s framing the issue that it “isn’t just a problem to solve (but) an opportunity we can realize.”

William and White Cane are a part of that education effort.

Casey said the initial connection with the Willmans was part of “having a good staff” that have contacts all over the state.

That then turned into Senate testimony last month.

“It helps enormously to have a hearing,” Casey said, and “focus the attention of the members of the committee.”

“This isn’t some theory that we have, some idea that might work” he added of the employment Willman has been able to offer to the disabled community. “It’s working and she’s proving it every day.

“When a person of her ability and her proven track record comes before the committee” and outlines her successes as an individual and employer “she speaks with a lot of authority.”

That in turn allows legislators to “better understand the issue through her experience and her life.”

Casey highlighted Thursday how he now has “more rebuttals” for his Senate colleagues by seeing how equipment has been adapted to employees at White Cane.

“A lot of employers could do this,” he stressed. “Some employers… have never had the opportunity, or taken the opportunity, to see beyond the horizon of what can happen. Erin’s provided us opp to see beyond the horizon (and) see what’s possible.”

“We’re all Americans,” Casey added. “It might take us a while (but) we figure things out. Erin is an American that has figured this out.”