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Unlike incarcerated residents with jobs in the kitchen or woodshop who earn just a few hundred dollars a month, remote workers make fair-market wages, allowing them to pay victim restitution fees and legal costs, provide child support, and contribute to Social Security and other retirement funds. Like inmates in work-release programs who have jobs out in the community, 10 percent of remote workers’ wages go to the state to offset the cost of room and board. All Maine DOC residents get re-entry support for housing and job searches before they’re released, and remote workers leave with even more: up-to-date résumés, a nest egg — and the hope that they’re less likely to need food or housing assistance, or resort to crime to get by.

I went into this article skeptical. Allowing them to be paid fairly shouldn't be a big deal but it absolutely is. Getting inmates a nest-egg to go back to the world with is huge, because most inmates walk out with almost nothing, which often leads to chronic homelessness and ending up back in jail. This is huge. I'm glad to see it at least somewhere.