MASSAPEQUA, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) — Home health aides are asking New York state for a elevate.
They are saying the present minimum wage shouldn’t be a residing wage for caregivers, and consequently there’s a vital scarcity, CBS2’s Carolyn Gusoff reported Wednesday.
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It’s an honorable job, however caregivers say the pay is dishonorable.
One dwelling well being aide earns $14 an hour caring for Mirtelina Morales. Her loving husband of six many years can not handle to feed her or transfer her.
“It’s not a job for anyone. No one can come out of the road and do work like this. It’s important to care,” Julio Morales mentioned.
And but, there’s a vital scarcity of people that care to be dwelling well being aides, as a result of they will’t afford to do the work.
Even attending to the job, usually paying a number of bus and practice fares, cuts into already meager pay.
For the reason that pandemic, almost half of the workforce has vanished.
“Is it actually true that we do care about our family members, the best way that we profess to, if we don’t even pay the folks that look after them a residing wage? It’s embarrassing. It’s shameful,” dwelling well being care mentor Mildred Garcia-Gallery mentioned.
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“Honest Pay for House Care” is a invoice in Albany that will elevate pay to $22.50 per hour, from minimal wage, which is now as little as $12 in components of the state.
Advocates are additionally asking Gov. Kathy Hochul to incorporate the upper Medicaid reimbursements in her upcoming funds.
“You possibly can’t eat on $12 an hour. You possibly can’t feed your individual household, however but you’re anticipated to exit and maintain another person’s. The wages don’t equal the job we’re asking them to do,” mentioned Dana Arnone, proprietor of Reliance House Senior Companies.
Kathleen Downes, a Floral Park resident who has cerebral palsy and desires an aide, mentioned she finds it onerous to reconcile their wages with the latest elevate for fast-food staff.
“A rise for them and never for dwelling care staff type of gives the look that human life shouldn’t be price as a lot as a hamburger,” Downes mentioned.
The invoice might value the state $4 billion. A City University of New York report claims it could greater than pay for itself by producing new tax income and getting staff off of public help.
Advocates say the price of not elevating pay is even larger, as growing old an ailing family members will likely be pressured out of their properties and into costlier long-term amenities.
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Based on the CUNY examine, elevating wages for dwelling well being aides would lead to $1.4 billion in beneficial properties to the New York economic system.
