The pandemic has the existing hardships that afflict the home care workers, forcing them to leave to seek better paying jobs, causing a devastating shortage in home services which continues to grow. An alliance of senior, disability, and family care organizations as well as advocates formed and demanded that the new budget would reflect a fair pay for all workers (150% of the minimum wage), an investment in home care workforce and insurance compensation of the cost for Personal Protective Equipment for home care agencies.
The campaign led disabled people to protest at the Capitol in Albany. They presented a 70-foot-long list of New Yorkers who need home care and can’t find it. Activists were also arrested as they occupied the building.
The finalized version of the budget after the lengthy battle raised the hourly pay for workers by 3% during a two-year period (two dollars raise beginning in October 2022 and one dollar increase in 2023). Far from the requested $22 an hour, the “bump” from $15 to $18 an hour for home care in NYC is deemed insufficient to be competitive with other sectors of the economy.
—Yan Grenier
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