The estimated 2.5 million people employed as home health and personal care aides provide crucial long-term care to elders and people with disabilities, yet their jobs are inadequately supported and compensated, according to a comprehensive new PHI analysis of the workforce.

The just-published 120-page report — entitled Caring in America — A Comprehensive Analysis of the Nation’s Fastest-Growing Jobs: Home Health and Personal Care Aides — is the most in-depth analysis of America’s home care jobs available.

The report concludes that despite being the nation’s most high-demand occupation, the home care and personal assistance workforce is characterized by:

• Poor wages
• Inconsistent training requirements
• Inadequate health care coverage
• High injury rates
• Unpredictable hours
• Heavy reliance on public benefits

As a result, the report warns, our nation is unprepared to meet the needs of its rapidly aging population.

“At a Crossroads”

“Carework in America is at a crossroads,” said PHI Director of Policy Research Dorie Seavey, Ph.D., a labor economist and the nation’s leading expert on the home care workforce. Seavey authored the report with PHI Policy Associate Abby Marquand, M.P.H.

Seavey continued:

“We can continue the status quo of poorly supported and poorly compensated jobs, consigning home care workers to near-poverty earnings and home care to a revolving door of caregivers. Or, we can leverage this workforce’s enormous potential as both an underutilized asset in our health care system and as one of the strongest job growth engines that our economy has to offer.”

Between 2008 and 2018, the home care workforce is expected to grow at rates four to five times faster than jobs in the overall economy.

Hopes for Report

“Our hope is that this resource will promote a better and broader understanding of the workforce, as well as the large and growing eldercare/disability services industry it supports,” wrote PHI National Policy Director Steve Edelstein in the report’s foreword.

“We also hope that it will facilitate a more informed public discussion of key issues shaping the future of in-home services, aiding the development of both effective policy solutions and a targeted industry response,” Edelstein continued.

For more information on the direct-care workforce, including the PHI State Data Center, Chart Gallery with downloadable graphs and charts, and Fact Sheets, visit PHI PolicyWorks.

– by Deane Beebe and Matthew Ozga