Poems by Direct Care Workers: A Handy Guide to Pay Rates in MR Services

David Moreau

I’ve been working with adults with developmental disabilities since 1979. I’ve been a vocational instructor, a group home staff person, a site supervisor, an activity supervisor, a counselor, a program director, an outreach worker and a case manager. Right now I’m the team leader of the Activity Services Program at the Social Learning Center in Lewiston, Maine, a job I find deeply satisfying because it mostly consists of teaching people to have some control over their lives.

I’m also a poet who has been known to brag that Garrison Keillor has read my poems three times on National Public Radio’s Writer’s Almanac. This year, Inclusion Press of Toronto, Canada, published a book of mine, If You’re Happy and You Know It Clap Your Hand. It tells stories – and attempts to tell the truth – about the cost of caring for one another.

When Elise Nakhnikian of the Direct Care Alliance asked me to comment for a policy fact sheet about the effect of low wages on the lives of direct care workers, I sent her this poem.

“A Handy Guide to Pay Rates in MR Services” is a simple observation of the ironic fact that the workers who actually do the work make the least amount of money. Which means that, for many of us, the only way we can make a livable wage is to move away from what we love – the hands-on care of others.

I’m still writing most every day and trying to respect the people around me — participants and staff, and myself as well. It’s not always easy, but together we can do hard things.

A Handy Guide to Pay Rates in MR Services

During a normal work day, you are not even                                            You make good money.
in the same building as a person with disabilities.
You supervise people who spend most of their time
not in the presence of people with disabilities.

You have an office where people with disabilities                                   You make decent money.
rarely go. You supervise people who do not
do direct care. You know people with disabilities, primarily,
by their names in the annual budget.

You do not do direct care but supervise people who do.                              If you’re careful, you get by.
People with disabilities are around you for
a good part of the day.

You are a direct care worker and people with                                         If you’re careful, or work a
disabilities are around you all the time.                                                 second job, you barely get by.

You are a person with disabilities.                                                     You make 8 cents a box packing
                                                                                                        incense (when it’s available.)

David Moreau
Member, Class of 2009
Voices Institute National Leadership Program