New York Council Members’ Resolve to Pass Fair Pay for Home Care Act
Crystal Hudson, the New York City council member and chair of the Committee on Aging, and Mark Levine, the president of Manhattan Borough, held a press conference on Monday to introduce a resolution to pass the Fair Pay for Home Care Act.
The act would increase the minimum wage for home care workers in the state to roughly $22.50 per hour, up from $13.20 per hour.
Due to low wages, more than 40% of New York’s home care workers live in or near poverty levels and 57% rely on public assistance, according to a 2020 study from PHI, a New York-based advocacy organization.
New York state also has the worst shortage of home health care workers in the country, according to a Mercer labor analysis from 2018.
The act would require private insurance companies to reimburse the cost of personal protective equipment for home care agencies, fund the Home Care Jobs Innovation Fund and improve recruitment and retention.
The act was included in the Senate and assembly’s budget resolutions. Right now, negotiations are taking place between Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, D-N.Y., and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, D-N.Y., with the final state budget due by April 1.
The Action Network, an advocacy organization, is collecting signatures for a letter to Hochul requesting the Fair Pay for Home Care Act be included in the state budget, “or the workforce shortage will worsen.”
The letter indicates this will cause New York seniors and people with disabilities to resort to institutional care that is more expensive.
“[We] need to rapidly expand the workforce in order to meet the growing needs of our aging population,” the letter said.
According to a report from the Department of City Planning, New York’s total population is expected to grow 5.6% by 2030. For those who are 65 and older the population will grow 25%, and the number of adults over the age of 85 is expected to grow 75%.
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