Caregiver living wage Archives ⋆ Cathy Cress

Why are Care Providers for Clients So Hard to Find ?

September 8, 2021

Home care aides all over the US are AWOL. Care Management, home care agencies, nursing homes are severely understaffed and cannot find enough caregivers to staff cases for shifts. Why?

Disorganization of Home Care Industry

Staffing shortages have frustrated the home care and care management industry for

decades, according to Paula Hahn author of the New old Aging blog for the New York Times. . There is no national recruiting or training program for this huge industry.The home care industry has always been a hodgepodge of for-profit companies and chains, nonprofit programs and publicly funded care through Medicaid, all operating under a confusing welter of state and federal regulations, plus an uncharted “gray market” of clients who avoid agencies and hire privately. But Covid-19 has intensified the problem.

“I’ve never heard such frustration over finding workers, and I’ve been doing this for 20 years,” said Vicki Hoak, executive director of the Home Care Association of America, whose 4,000-member agencies collectively employ about 500,000 people.

Bureau of Labor Predicted this in 2020 -Pre-COVID

This was foreseen and was by the Bureau of Labor statistics. They predicted in 2020 that the long-term care sector would need to fill an additional 6.2 million direct care job openings between 2019 and 2029 as workers leave the field for a new occupation or leave the labor force altogether due to retirement, disability, or some other reasons. Combining these departures and new jobs, they projected a 7.4 million total direct care job openings in the decade ahead

Mammoth Growth in # of Seniors Who Want to Age

in Place

The bigger problem is the growing need for home care. Each day 10,000 seniors turn 65

in the US and the number of older adults will more than double over the next several decades to top 88 million people and represent over 20 percent of the population by 2050. . The majority want to age in their home and need home care, where today there are not enough home care workers to fill those jobs.

More $ Spent on Home Care than Nursing Homes

2015, was the first time nationally that more money was spent on home care than nursing home care. We’ve seen a culture and financing shift toward home and community-based care.”
Covid -19 now the Delta variant has wreaked more chaos into the home care market. Home care workers are mainly women and had to stay home with their children when school closed down. They were also hot hard by COVID themselves, working with seniors before a vaccine was developed.

Solutions to the National loss of caregivers

There are many other factors the loss of care providers and great solutions offered by Leading Age a national non profit for aging and home care.

What’s Happening with Biden’s Care Infrastructure???

August 18, 2021

What’s Happening with Biden’s Care Infrastructure???

Well Biden’s Care Infrastructure was in negotiation it was thrown out by Biden’s team along with Housing Schools and Buildings ( just in time for kids to return to school with the Delta Variant- screeching through the US) , along with R&D Manufacturing just in time to ignore the future

Leaving Medicare help backing up like a clogged drain , this compromise has left care for the elderly and poor still stranded in the land of no hope.

That slashed plan was passed by the senate recently and is smoldering in the House

Chaos reigns.

The Care infrastructure seems to be lodged into a second bill for soft infrastructure. The Senate advanced a sprawling $3.5tn budget blueprint for “soft” infrastructure projects to tackle climate change and health care, a day after approving a $1tr bipartisan infrastructure bill to rebuild the nation’s crumbling roads and bridges but it is opposed by liberal and conservative foes in the house. Where Nancy Pelosi is trying to balance both political sides to get this through .

If You Are In Aging Call Your Congressman

Care Infrastructure may wait a long time if folks in health care and older constituents do not contact their congressman and tell them to support this bill. They control the votes for the bill and you have to let them know you will only vote for them if they do. Common Cause has this easy way to find and contact your congressman If you believe in Medicare and senior’s right to to not have their teeth rot, not hear their grandkids or be unable to read a book- do it now

Biden’s Caregiver Infrastructure Plan Crumbling

June 16, 2021

Caregiver Infrastructure Bill in Shreds

President Biden’s caregiver infrastructure bill appears to be in deep trouble . In fact the entire bill in is jeopardy.

The president set his sights on a sweeping infrastructure bill that would both revamp the nation’s roads and bridges as well as boost spending on services including healthcare and child care — though Republicans reject the idea that those latter priorities even qualify for the label “infrastructure.

Republicans Do Not see Care As Infrastructure

Many Republicans question government funding for care of the elderly and children, especially at the levels Biden wants. He initially proposed $400 billion for elderly and disabled care, and another $200 billion for childcare. Republicans want this entire Caregiver infrastructure section removed from the bill.

Congressional leaders have a math problem to pass the bill. To get through the evenly split Senate under the normal process, legislation would need support from all of the Democratic caucus and at least 10 Republicans — or more if any Democrats defect. If Democrats try to approve legislation on their own using budget reconciliation, they cannot lose a single vote.

What Will Biden’s Investment Create- in Jobs and the Economy

What are these lawmakers questioning? Basically the women who hold up half the sky of care in the United States by doing it through their low paid or no paid jobs. Like American bridges these

caregivers are collapsing.

Sixty-five percent of the jobs — approximately 1.5 million jobs —resulting from Biden’s investment would be in child care, residential care, and home health care. An additional 225,000 jobs can be created or supported in sectors that support care work, and over 500,000 jobs would be supported in other sectors as direct care workers spend their wages on goods and services.

Biden’s Plan of investing $77.5 billion per year would support over two million new jobs, at an average cost of $34,496 per supported job. Over 10 years, this translates to 22.5 million new jobs. Annually, a $77.5 billion investment in new jobs translates into $220 billion in new economic activity.

If Aging is Your Field Call You Representative Now

So find your local representative and tell them to support Biden’s bill if you care about aging or caregivers or women or shoring up the frayed- fraught care infrastructure.I have done a series of blogs on the bill . Check them out now

Is Biden’s Caregiver Bill Really Infrastructure?

May 11, 2021

House Republicans Denounce Biden Caregiver Infrastructure Plan -Say It Is Not Infrastructure.

House Democrats defended President Joe Biden’s inclusion in his “American Jobs Plan” of $400 billion in support for caregiving, after Republicans criticized the package as stretching the definition of infrastructure and called on the White House to scale it back.

WHY CALL It INFRASTRUCTURE

The word “infrastructure” means something solid, essential, distributed and in the public interest. But as we have all learned in the pandemic year, care infrastructure is just that: UNPAID OR LOW PAID Caregivers are “rocks” and the solid foundation upon which the economy works. Without it, our families, our paychecks, our labor force participation, our workplaces all decline and we all suffer and collectively fall behind.

Like sagging bridges , unpaid women caregivers hold up the care infractstruce. In 2017, AARP found that about 41 million family caregivers in America perform roughly $470 billion worth of unpaid labor a year. Since then, the number of caregivers has increased to 53 million, meaning that more than one out of five Americans are unpaid caregivers, according to AARP’s latest report.

The Care Infrastructure Collapsing

From February 2020 to January 2021 more than 2.3 million left their jobs, and that puts women’s labor force participation rate at 57%, the lowest it’s been since 1988. This was due to a lack of childcare and closing of schools due to COVID when 39% of women family caregivers leave their job to have more time to care for a loved one.

Caregiving for an elder reduces paid work hours for middle aged women by about 41 percent. In total, the cost impact of caregiving on the individual female caregiver in terms of lost wages and Social Security benefits equals $324,044. 34% leave because their work does not provide flexible hours.

HOW MUCH WOULD IT COST GOVERNMENT IF FREE CAREGIVERS QUIT

Let’s put that free caregiving into context.At $470 billion in 2013, the value of unpaid caregiving exceeded the value of paid home care and total Medicaid spending in the same year, and nearly matched the value of the sales of the world’s largest company, Wall-Mart ($477 billion). [AARP Public Policy Institute. (2015). Valuing the Invaluable: 2015 Update.]

So in 2013 the US Government would have to come up with $477 billion to replace free caregiving.

Let’s put that free caregiving into 2017 context. AARP notes unpaid caregivers’ economic impact was more than all out-of-pocket spending on U.S. health care in 2017($470 billion)and the total combined value added to the U.S. economy by the agriculture/forestry and mining sectors ($438 billion) that year.

So caregiving was not free, the US would have to come up with $477 billion in 2017 to replace it.

WHAT IF UNPAID CAREGIVERS Totally COLLAPSED

If all these unpaid family caregivers stopped caring the national caregiving system would collapse, like dangerous American bridges .Then the US government would have to come up with $470 Billion to replace free caregivers or put all elderly in nursing homes , which are havens for disease spread , which we know from the pandemic making them a holocaust of death. Congregate nursing homes and have become a broken national system since COVID.

So Biden has brilliantly found a way to avoid the $470,00 billion bill and instead create jobs that will keep elders at home cared for through home health care paid through Medicare.

What Will Biden’s Investment Create- in Jobs and the Economy

So find your local representative and tell them to support Biden’s bill if you care about aging or caregivers or women or shoring up the frayed- fraught care infrastructure.I have done a series of blogs on the bill . Check them out now

What Does Biden’s Infrastructure Plan Do For Family Caregivers?

April 26, 2021

What Does Biden’s Caregiver Infrastructure Plan Do For Families?

President Biden’s Caregiver Infrastructure plan will help families -the very infrastructure that supports elders as they age. What do I mean? Currently, 53 million family members provide most of the care that vulnerable seniors and people with disabilities require — without being paid as Medicare does not pay for long-term caregiving.

Family Members Provide Care for No Pay

There is often a significant financial and emotional cost to these family caregivers. According to AARP, family caregivers on average devote about 24 hours a week to helping loved ones and spend around $7,000 out-of-pocket on that care.

The value of this unpaid labor force is estimated to be at least $306 billion annually, nearly double the combined costs of home health care ($43 billion) and nursing home care ($115 billion)

Medicare Does Not Pay for Custodial Caregiving

Families are shocked when they discover that Medicare does not pay for custodial caregiving or long-term care. This is the type of care that most elders will eventually need as they age. They will pay for short-term care post-hospitalization. So most elders must depend on their families for this care or if they are in the upper 10-15% pay for private duty home care which can run up to $4000-$6000 a month if they need 24-hour care, creating severe inequality in out care infrastructure.

Some Family Caregivers Can Be Paid Through Medicaid and the VA

Although family caregivers and actually in-home care is not paid by Medicare, some family caregivers are paid through the VA and family caregivers supporting a relative on Medicaid

In the US 1-5 Americans receive Medicaid. which is only available for low-income individuals.VA Homecare is only available to veterans with specific criteria

Biden’s Caregiver Program May Help Medicaid Family Caregivers

The median salary for these home-care workers, who care for low-income Medicaid recipients, is approximately $17,200 per year, said Leslie Frane, executive vice president at SEIU. This is in large part because the United States pays only limited amounts to states to compensate them for Medicaid care in the home. More than half of home-care workers are on some form of public assistance themselves such as food stamps, Frane said. They are overwhelmingly female and far more likely to be people of color than the general population.

Being a Caregiver on Medicaid Comes at a High Personal Cost

Being a caregiver for a family member presents incredible hurdles for all family caregivers but under Medicaid comes at a high cost. .Caregivers often have to significantly reduce their number of hours working outside the home or leave their jobs entirely in order to provide quality care for their loved one. This means that caregivers are spending hours assisting loved ones with daily tasks, cooking meals, taking them to appointments, ensuring their safety and well-being, and providing companionship, but are not being compensated for their time.

Biden’s Health Care Plan May be Unveiled This Week

As I mentioned in my last blog, there are still few details about how Biden’s Caregiver Infrastructure Bill of $400 million will be allocated. However, there is reason to believe that a large part will go to these family caregivers who support their elderly relatives on Medicaid.

We may get a hint of what and when that will be this week when Biden will discuss changes in Heath care he will include in the will try to include in his American Family Plan.

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