Posted by Elise Nakhnikian on June 25th, 2009 at 10:56 am | No Comments »
A full set of DCA Direct Care Fact Sheets, one for each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, is now available in the Resources section of our website.
The one-page sheets were created as a resource for direct care worker advocates and their allies, legislators, policymakers, members of the media, and others interested in direct care issues. They include key facts such as:
- The number of home health aides, nursing assistants, and personal and home care aides in the state in 2006 and the projected numbers of each in 2016
- The average hourly wage for the state’s direct care workers
- What percentage of direct care workers in that state or region are without health insurance
Elise Nakhnikian
Communications Director
Direct Care Alliance
Posted by Elise Nakhnikian on June 8th, 2009 at 6:57 pm | 4 Comments »
Peggie Smith
“Federal reform is urgently needed to provide home care workers with the compensation and respect they deserve,” says Peggie Smith.
Smith, who is the Murray Family Professor of Law at the University of Iowa College of Law and a graduate of Harvard Law, is talking about a U.S. Supreme Court decision that excluded home care workers from protection under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The court said the workers were providing companionship services.
In Protecting Home Care Workers under the Fair Labor Standards Act, (PDF) the second in a series of Direct Care Alliance policy briefs, Smith says the decision “threatens to destabilize the home care industry, erode the precarious economic status of home care workers, and undermine the quality of care that they provide to home care clients.”
She outlines two approaches the federal government could take to reverse the ruling:
1. Amend the FLSA to explicitly include home care workers; and
2. Revise Department of Labor (DOL) regulations to significantly limit the reach of the companionship exemption.
Smith recommends that the government do both, with the DOL taking immediate action to revise the companionship exemption while Congress works to reverse the impact of the Supreme Court decision by passing the Fair Home Health Care Act. Continue reading »
Posted by Elise Nakhnikian on March 31st, 2009 at 3:18 pm | 1 Comment »
Using Recovery Act Funds to Improve Direct Care Jobs and the Quality of Direct Care Services (PDF)
A new Direct Care Alliance policy brief helps direct care worker advocates, employers, educators, researchers and others make the case for investing part of the federal funding available through the Recovery Act in the direct care workforce.
DCA Executive Director Leonila Vega calls this window of opportunity “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
But that window will close in just a few weeks, once all the funds have been allocated. ”Funds made available through the fiscal stimulus can do great things, but direct care advocates need to move quickly to figure out what they can use–and how. This brief offers them a terrific road map,” says labor economist Nancy Folbre, a member of the editorial committee that produced the brief.
Vega held a conference call this month with leaders of state direct care worker associations to go over a draft of the brief and discuss ways they could use it. “Nearly a trillion dollars is being sent to states by the federal government with the express purpose of stimulating the economy and building our infrastructure so more Americans join the middle class,” she says. “Let’s make sure we don’t use these funds for Band-Aid solutions, but instead for systems change programs that can help renew our economy by improving these crucial and fast-growing jobs.”
Continue reading »
