Home care workers have our lives in their hands. They’re paid only $10 an hour
by Sarah Jaffe, The Guardian, Jul 14 2017
Read the article — here’s a summary:
Although home care workers have begun to make up an increasingly large subset of American
employees, wages have been stagnant, at around $10 an hour. Home care is one
of the fastest growing jobs in America, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics
expects the field to add more jobs than any other by 2024. Workers describe
details of their 16-hour overnight work shifts and their clients who require
constant, round-the-clock care. Many are also verbally abused and sexually
harassed by their clients.
The Obama administration made moves to protect
workers in this field, extending minimum wage and overtime protections to
them, and also gave them increased access to healthcare insurance. Before the
Affordable Care Act, one in three home care workers was uninsured. New plans
by the Trump administration to repeal the ACA could result in 1.8 to 3
million jobs being lost in the health care industry as premiums rise and
people lose their insurance, with almost a quarter of those jobs being lost
in home care.
This would disproportionately affect women of color and
immigrant women, who make up the majority of the home care workforce, and
will continue to do the bulk of unpaid work when budgets for paid care fall
through.
