Wages for personal and home care aides have never been high - and they’re getting lower nationwide. Between 1999 and 2006, real wages for these workers fell by 4 percent nationwide.
State Chart Book on Wages for Personal and Home Care Aides, 1999-2006, (pdf) a new PHI publication by Director of Policy Research Dorie Seavey, looks at the buying power of the wages earned by personal and home care aides between 1999 and 2006. It finds that their median wages nationwide increased by an average of just 2 percent a year while the rate of inflation grew faster, causing the 4 percent decline in real wages.
The chart book uses Bureau of Labor Statistics data to compare the wages received by personal and home care aides in all 50 states and the nation over a seven-year period.
Findings include:
- Eighteen states and the District of Columbia showed a decline in real median wages for PHCAs. In five of those states, real wages fell by 10 percent or more.
- In nearly 60 percent of states (29), average hourly wages for PHCAs were below 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Line wage for full-time workers who live alone — low enough to qualify for many state and federal assistance programs.
Read more about direct-care worker wages on PHI’s Low-Wage Work page
Elise Nakhnikian, Senior Online Editor
enakhnikian@phinational.org
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