As the American population ages, the need for care workers is exploding. Direct care jobs, like home health and personal care aides, are generally predicted to be among the fastest growing occupations over the next few years. But the quality of these jobs in no way reflects their importance, or the growing need for these workers, who are overwhelmingly women and disproportionately people of color and immigrants. One in six live in poverty, and the median income for direct care workers is under $20,000.
Those stats come from a new report from PHI and Caring Across Generations, which offers some recommendations for state policymakers looking to strengthen the backbone of the care economy — the direct care workers themselves. Workforce Matters: The Direct Care Workforce and State-Based LTSS Social Insurance Programs looks at the working conditions for the people on “the paid frontline of long-term services and supports.”
Between workforce attrition and growing need, the report says, the direct care workforce will need to fill nearly 8 million jobs between 2016 and 2026. Building a strong care infrastructure requires ensuring those jobs are good, well-paying jobs.
To accomplish this, the report lays out several suggestions for states looking to strengthen their direct care workforce. Among the most urgent: increasing compensation by setting robust wage floors and providing benefits can help direct care workers, who’ve barely seen their hourly pay go up over the last decade.
Developing more advanced roles and training for care workers could improve the quality of care. The report authors also suggest states learn more about their care workers by collecting more employer-level data about the size and composition of the direct care workforce and launching workgroups to respond to the needs of both care workers and families.
Investing in care workers couldn’t be more crucial as families around the country grapple with the high costs of providing quality care. “We cannot make care more accessible or affordable without solving for the crisis that direct care workers face every day,” Josephine Kalipeni, director of policy and federal affairs at Caring Across Generations, said in a statement.
The report comes as states consider how to help their residents cover the cost of long-term care services. Earlier this year, Washington set the bar by adopting a social insurance program for long-term care. In Hawaii, the Kupuna Caregivers program launched in 2017 provides subsidies to help caregivers working at least 30 hours a week outside the home. And a report released earlier this year by the National Academy of Social Insurance offers up blueprints for states looking to implement social insurance programs for universal family care — encompassing long-term care for aging people as well as childcare and paid family and medical leave.
These bold proposals all require a strong direct care workforce to succeed. “As transformative policy solutions like Universal Family Care emerge, and states design and implement programs to urgently meet the care needs of an aging population,” Kalipeni said, “they must directly invest in and support the dignity of the people doing this vital work.”
Help us Prepare for Trump’s Day One
Trump is busy getting ready for Day One of his presidency – but so is Truthout.
Trump has made it no secret that he is planning a demolition-style attack on both specific communities and democracy as a whole, beginning on his first day in office. With over 25 executive orders and directives queued up for January 20, he’s promised to “launch the largest deportation program in American history,” roll back anti-discrimination protections for transgender students, and implement a “drill, drill, drill” approach to ramp up oil and gas extraction.
Organizations like Truthout are also being threatened by legislation like HR 9495, the “nonprofit killer bill” that would allow the Treasury Secretary to declare any nonprofit a “terrorist-supporting organization” and strip its tax-exempt status without due process. Progressive media like Truthout that has courageously focused on reporting on Israel’s genocide in Gaza are in the bill’s crosshairs.
As journalists, we have a responsibility to look at hard realities and communicate them to you. We hope that you, like us, can use this information to prepare for what’s to come.
And if you feel uncertain about what to do in the face of a second Trump administration, we invite you to be an indispensable part of Truthout’s preparations.
In addition to covering the widespread onslaught of draconian policy, we’re shoring up our resources for what might come next for progressive media: bad-faith lawsuits from far-right ghouls, legislation that seeks to strip us of our ability to receive tax-deductible donations, and further throttling of our reach on social media platforms owned by Trump’s sycophants.
We’re preparing right now for Trump’s Day One: building a brave coalition of movement media; reaching out to the activists, academics, and thinkers we trust to shine a light on the inner workings of authoritarianism; and planning to use journalism as a tool to equip movements to protect the people, lands, and principles most vulnerable to Trump’s destruction.
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Today, we’re asking all of our readers to start a monthly donation or make a one-time donation – as a commitment to stand with us on day one of Trump’s presidency, and every day after that, as we produce journalism that combats authoritarianism, censorship, injustice, and misinformation. You’re an essential part of our future – please join the movement by making a tax-deductible donation today.
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