prisoners in the food industry. they teamed up with the state correctional department is staffed two factories with inmates. of paying them a reported $14 per hour. they do not get benefits like regular workers in the state gets a cut of their salaries. supporters say the jobs give opportunities to those who desperately need them to get back on their feet. critics say prison work programs are being exploited by private industry and the states to provide cheap workers. the founder of the kansas coalition for sentence in prison reform. you don t want the businesses taking advantage of people and looking at them as less than human because they made a mistake. state owned businesses pay an average of $0.86 an hour to inmates. in new york state pay is said to start at $0.16 per hour. andrew cuomo criticized for using inmates to make hand sanitizer for the coronavirus pandemic. they earn the average of $0.65 per hour.