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At nearly 88,000 strong, direct-care workers comprise Wisconsin’s largest workforce — yet many earn wages low enough to qualify for public benefit programs, according to a fact sheet released by PHI this month.

The median hourly wage for home health aides, for example, is just $10.35, while personal care aides earn $9.62 an hour. Both wage levels are lower than 200% of the federal poverty level ($10.42).

Due to those low wages — as well as the fact that many direct-care workers can only find part-time employment — more than 40 percent of Wisconsin’s direct-care workers qualify for state and federal assistance programs, such as food stamps or Medicaid.

The estimated cost of these public benefits is more than $180 million — the equivalent of a $1 to $2 public subsidy for every hour worked by a Wisconsin direct-care worker, the PHI fact sheet reports.

Other Findings

Wisconsin’s direct-care workforce is its single largest occupational grouping, at 87,797. (Retail salespersons are next, at 76,180.)

Included within those 87,797 direct-care workers are:

• 37,630 nursing aides, orderlies, and attendants;
• 22,080 home health aides;
• 19,630 agency-employed personal care aides; and
• 8,457 independent providers in public programs.

According to the fact sheet, direct-care workers comprise nearly one-third (32 percent) of Wisconsin’s overall health care workforce.

PHI’s analysis also shows that direct-care workers’ wages are declining. In 2000, for example, personal care aides earned an inflation-adjusted median wage of $10.69 an hour — more than a full dollar higher than in 2010.

Fact Sheets Support Advocacy Efforts

The Wisconsin fact sheet is one in an ongoing series of PHI fact sheets providing overviews of the direct-care workforce in select states.

It was funded by a Health Care Workforce Development Grant from the state of Wisconsin.

Stakeholders in Wisconsin say that the fact sheet will be used to educate state legislators about Wisconsin’s direct-care workforce.

For information on direct-care workers in each of the 50 states, visit the PHI State Data Center.

– by Matthew Ozga

The Kenosha County Long-Term Care Workforce Alliance in Wisconsin has a new look and interactive website to complement its recently launched social marketing campaign “When Caring Is a Career.”

Like the entire nation, the county is facing a shortage of direct-care workers and has taken a creative approach to tackle some of the problems that plague the long-term care industry and lead to poor staffing levels.

The Alliance designed the When Caring Is a Career campaign to meet three goals:

• Improve public perception of long-term care healthcare
• Increase the number of applicants for direct-care jobs in long-term care through the use of its new interactive website and other technologies
• Connect potential direct-care workers to employers and to Kenosha County Job Center support services

Public Perception a Barrier

“The Kenosha County Long Term Care Alliance members believe that negative public opinion of work in long-term care is a potent barrier to fuller employment,” said Barbara Wisnefski, project coordinator for the Alliance, a program of the Aging & Disability Resource Center of Kenosha County.

“The new image campaign helps the Alliance continue its dedication to improving the recognition, retention, and recruitment of all caregivers,” Wisnefski said.

In an effort to change the public perception about direct-care worker jobs and garner recognition for the valuable work of this often invisible workforce, the Alliance plans to place bus-board advertisements and billboards featuring direct-care workers’ testimonials on the rewards of their work. The Alliance will also distribute posters and other materials to promote When Caring Is a Career.

Too often, direct-care workers feel that they are not respected or supported, so they are reluctant to let others know about their profession — or end up leaving the profession altogether, the Alliance explains.

“Long-term care consumers and employers understand the value of the direct-care workers,” Wisnefski said. “The general public needs to make these frontline workers feel publicly as valued as they do personally. Caregivers should proudly say in public: ‘Come do what I do!’”

Interactive Website

The Alliance also created an interactive website, which hosts a self-assessment tool to help job seekers determine whether a career in long-term care is the right fit for them. The site also includes information on careers, training resources, and long-term care employers in order to facilitate employment in these settings.

Currently, more than 30 employers actively take part in the Kenosha County Long Term Care Workforce Alliance and support the recognition, retention, and recruitment of direct-care workers.

For more information about the campaign, contact Barbara Wisnefski.

– by Deane Beebe

Tens of thousands of public employees and their supporters have been demonstrating at the state capitol in Madison, Wisconsin since February 15 to protest a bill that would require public employees to pay more for their health care coverage and pensions — and eliminate just about all of their collective bargaining rights.

According to the SEIU, “9,000 nurses and nursing home staff, along with about 5,000 home care workers” would be affected if Governor Scott Walker‘s (R) “budget-repair bill” passed, in addition to Wisconsin’s schoolteachers, firefighters, police officers, and other state and local public workers.

Also slated for elimination under the bill is the Wisconsin Quality Home Care Authority (pdf).

Agreed to Monetary Increases but Collective Bargaining Rights Untouchable

State and local public employees, including the county nursing home workers, reportedly agreed to pay more toward their health care and pensions, which amounts to a 7 percent cut in take-home pay. These workers would be required to contribute 5.8 percent of their pay toward their pensions, and, for most, double the contribution to their health care premiums from 6 percent to 12.6 percent, according to The New York Times.

The public employees have refused to accept, however, limiting their collective bargaining rights to negotiating wages only, as proposed by Walker.

“If you can only bargain for wages, you are basically unable to do much of anything,” said Bonnie Strauss, staff director, SEIU Healthcare Wisconsin. “The bulk of contracts are about what is most important — the working conditions: scheduling; staffing; holiday, vacations, and sick days; and input into safety issues.”

Under the bill, the collective bargaining rights for the 5,000 independent home care providers would be eliminated entirely.

“These rights are especially important to low-wage workers, because if you don’t have a sick day and get sick, it’s a major loss,” Strauss said.

Wisconsin was the first state in the nation to have collective bargaining rights, which were passed in the late 1950s, an NPR interview on states’ efforts to scale back collective bargaining rights explains.

Eliminate Matching and Registry Services

Less known is that the budget bill also contains a provision that would eliminate the Wisconsin Quality Home Care Authority, which provides matching and registry services, “like it never happened, erasing it from the map,” said Patti Becker, the Authority’s executive director.

The Authority helps consumers who want to direct their own care locate and employ compatible independent home care providers, as well as providing other services to support consumer-directed care.

“It would no longer be lawful for the Wisconsin Department of Health and Human Services to contract with the Authority to provide matching and registry services,” Becker said.

The independent home care workers just reached a tentative agreement on their first contract with the Wisconsin Department of Health and Human Services in December 2010; it was voted down the same month by the Wisconsin Senate along with other state contracts.

The Authority, which was enacted into law in 2009 and launched in late 2010, had plans to roll out its services to the entire state by July 1, but those plans are now in limbo.

Vote Delayed

Walker’s “budget-repair bill” has the full support of Republican legislators, who are the majority in the state legislature. They are one senator short to hold a vote, however, because the Democratic lawmakers have reportedly left the state to delay a vote on the bill.

Wisconsin has a budget shortfall of $137 million and faces a $3.6 billion gap in the coming two-year budget.

– by Deane Beebe

Independent home care workers who provide services to Medicaid-eligible consumers voted to unionize in Missouri and Wisconsin on May 5 and 6, respectively, totaling 17,000 workers who will be represented there. Read the full story

Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI)

Along with many economists and advocacy organizations, Rep.  Gwen Moore (D-WI) wants to see women’s poverty placed at the very top of the nation’s agenda. And she has exerted her political power as a U.S. representative to pursue this goal by advocating for the inclusion of women in President Obama’s economic stimulus package.

Moore’s passion for supporting low-income women is not just political but personal — She was a teenaged mother who lived on government assistance. Now she’s fighting to narrow the wage gap and increase post-secondary education for women on welfare. Thanks to a writeup at WomensEnews.org, we caught wind of the comments she delivered at the Democratic National Convention on women and poverty, and we tracked her down this week as she was on her way to cast votes in the House. Read the full story

A recent “listening session” on the direct-care workforce for Wisconsin legislators demonstrated the power — and the limitations — of capturing lawmakers’ attention with personal testimonials.

Family members attested to the importance of paid caregivers, employers discussed the increasing difficulty of recruiting enough workers, and direct-care workers talked about the difficulty of surviving on their wages as gas prices and other expenses increase.

Read the full story