This is a guest post from Vicki Shabo, Director of Work & Family Programs for the National Partnership for Women & Families.
Every day in the United States, more workers than many of us imagine face an impossible choice: go to work sick, or forgo a paycheck and risk job loss or workplace discipline. More than 40 million private sector workers in this country do not have access to even a single paid sick day. And when it comes to personal care workers—those who tend to the elderly and care for small children—more than half (52%) lack paid sick days.
The need for paid sick days for direct care workers could not be more critical. With pay rates that average about $10 per hour, every cent earned is crucial to direct care workers’ financial stability and the economic security of their families. On the other hand, when direct care workers go to work sick, they risk the fragile health of those they care for—people who are ill, elderly, or medically needy and who are entrusted to their care. Continue reading »
This post was written by Shawn Fremstad, Director of the Inclusive and Sustainable Economy Initiative at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
Earlier this year, the Obama administration unveiled plans to develop a “supplemental” poverty measure (SPM) based on recommendations made by the National Academy of Sciences in 1995. The SPM makes important technical improvements on the current outdated poverty measure (although, unfortunately, the current measure would remain the “official” one). However, it doesn’t take the much more important step of providing an accurate measure of what it takes to “make ends meet” and be economically secure in today’s economy.
The official poverty line for a family of four is currently a mere $22,000. We don’t know yet for sure where the supplemental poverty line will fall, but previous Census estimates suggest that it will only be a few thousand dollars higher, at best, than the current poverty line. By comparison, the Economic Policy Institute estimates that a four-person family needs just under $50,000 a year, on average nationwide, to make ends meet at a “modest, but safe” level. Similarly, the Commerce Department recently estimated that a four-person family needed at least $51,000 a year to achieve a minimum “middle-class family budget.”
The pay and benefits of direct care work should be judged primarily by whether it is possible for direct care workers, at a minimum, to live, not just above an extremely low “poverty” line, but at a middle-class level that allows them to be economically secure. Continue reading »
As an advocate for home care workers in the heart of the Los Angeles immigrant community, I work with hundreds of immigrant home care workers in my role as a leader and Associate Director of the Pilipino Workers Center (PWC). I attended a meeting in Houston from April 14-15, 2010, organized by the Department of Labor Office of Safety and Health Administration (DOL-OSHA), where Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis spoke about safety in the workplace. Immigration was a topic of the discussion as well, given that so many workers who face labor safety issues are recent immigrants to America. “Working without papers may be against the law, but it is NOT A DEATH SENTENCE!” said Secretary Solis. DOL statistics reveal that 14 immigrants die each day in the U.S. because of unsafe working conditions. Caregivers are among them.
Families and businesses across the country continue trying to understand the many ways health care reform will impact them. We’re right there with you – we want to know how employers and direct care workers will be affected by this sweeping reform. We know that it holds promise and that thousands of direct care workers will now have insurance. But every situation is different. We’ve put together a fact sheet exploring different situations and giving examples, such as:
Direct Care Worker #1—An uninsured single-parent with two children and an income of $20,500 (earning $9.84 per hour—the median wage for home health aides—and working full-time, year-round). Because this worker’s income is below 133 percent of the federal poverty line ($24,352), she or he would be eligible for Medicaid coverage starting in 2014. Some states already provide Medicaid or other public coverage to workers in this income range.
Although health care reform continues to spark debate and controversy across the nation, when President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, it marked the beginning of the most significant improvements to long-term care in a generation. Several components of the legislation, including Nursing Home Transparency and Improvement and the Elder Justice Act, will not only improve the care America’s long-term care consumers receive but will also improve and better the working conditions and training for direct care workers.
NCCNHR, The National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care, works to improve the quality of care and life for long-term care consumers and their families as well as working conditions and training for direct care workers. When health care reform passed Congress, nearly a dozen policy resolutions adopted by NCCNHR were addressed, including developing a standardized form for reporting nursing service hours and turnover and retention rates, requiring states to address retaliation against resident representatives who complain about poor care, and safeguarding nursing home residents when nursing home ownership is transferred. Health care reform will also address several ongoing problems faced by both consumers and workers. Continue reading »
Well, our report is complete, but it has not yet been presented to the Legislature.
As you know if you’ve been reading this blog, I am part of a team that was appointed by the state of Maine to recommend ways that the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee could streamline long-term care service delivery, address equalities in the services provided, and hopefully gain some cost savings, which can be passed on to workers in the form of livable wages and benefits such as paid time off and health care coverage. We finished our work in early January, and the report was supposed to be released later that month.
But I just learned that the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has put it on the back burner instead. Continue reading »
In his State of the Union Address last Tuesday, President Obama reiterated that his Administration’s #1 priority is to create more jobs and get our economy back on track. He also challenged Congress: “Don’t walk away from health care reform.”
The DCA applauds the President’s call to action. With more than a quarter of all direct care workers lacking health insurance, making quality health care affordable for all Americans remains our top priority. We’re also working to get direct care on the job creation agenda, so some of that funding will go to improve the quality of direct care jobs, ensuring that we can satisfy consumer demand for a stable, well-qualified workforce.
Direct care jobs are expected to be among the fastest growing occupations in the USA over the next decade. That means our nation is facing a crucial choice. We can continue to tolerate low-paying, poor-quality jobs that swell the ranks of the working poor and lead to poor care. Or we can invest in the direct care workforce. Continue reading »
Despite the overall success of Massachusetts’ health care reform, too many of the state’s direct care workers still cannot afford employer-sponsored health insurance, according to a new study from PHI and the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine.
According to Coverage for Caregivers: Lessons from Massachusetts Health Reform, (PDF) only one in every five direct care workers in the state have enrolled in an employer’s health care plan. Statewide, nearly three-quarters (71 percent) of working-age adults are covered through their employers.
Direct care workers often opt out of their employers’ plans because the premiums and copays are too costly. Instead, many work part-time in order to qualify for the state’s insurance plan, which costs less than most employer plans.“This disincentive to work undermines state efforts to build a quality, stable direct-care workforce,” said PHI Massachusetts Policy Director Amy Robins. Continue reading »
Every day in the United States, more workers than many of us imagine face an impossible choice: go to work sick, or forgo a paycheck and risk job loss or workplace discipline. More than 40 million private sector workers in this country do not have access to even a single paid sick day. And when it comes to personal care workers—those who tend to the elderly and care for small children—more than half (52%) lack paid sick days.
