Caring for America
There’s an assumption that the provision of long-term home care is a zero-sum calculation: You can either provide more care to more people or you can pay the workers better, but you can’t do both; if you pay the workers minimum wage or above minimum wage, then that will mean less care. We have to move beyond this. These women have long labored in poverty, and they have struggled mightily to maintain themselves as well as another family — and yet, long-term care has become increasingly insecure. And now their wages are being cut, their hours are being cut, the covered services are being cut, and we don’t actually see more people receiving the service! Suppressed wages has not meant more care. It is not a constructive route for dignity and security for recipients or providers.
