ORLANDO, Fla. \u2013 With America\u2019s population aging, it makes sense that the industry expected to see the most growth in the next decade is the home health care industry.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Census predicts that by 2034<\/a>, older adults will outnumber people under the age of 18 for the first time in the country\u2019s history. <\/p>\n The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics<\/a> projects that \u201chome health and personal care aides\u201d will need 739,800 new jobs by 2034, far more than any other occupation. <\/p>\n But right now, finding a home health aide, or a personal care aide, is a struggle across the country, and especially in Florida.<\/p>\n \u201cWe get these calls every single day from people across the state, calls from people who are approved for these services,\u201d said Caitlyn Clibbon, an attorney with Disability Rights Florida<\/a>. \u201cThe services have been prescribed and ordered, and they will be paid for by the insurance company. They just can\u2019t get anyone to show up and staff these shifts.\u201d<\/p>\n According to the BLS, the median pay for home health and personal care aides in 2024 was $34,900 a year, or $16.78 an hour.<\/p>\n That\u2019s the second-lowest median salary on the BLS list. Only fast food workers make less.<\/p>\n What it takes to be a home health or personal care aide<\/p>\n Not much formal education is required to be a home health or personal care aide \u2013 typically just a high school diploma is needed. <\/p>\n Aides for home health agencies can follow training guidelines or pass competency tests or evaluations, depending on the industry, according to the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration. There\u2019s no state license or certification for home health aides though.<\/p>\n A fact sheet is available on the state\u2019s home health aide website.<\/a><\/p>\n But the work is intense, Clibbon said.<\/p>\n [WATCH: Nursing schools hopeful after DeSantis proposes $130 million investment in nursing education]<\/p>\n Aides help people with chronic illnesses, disabilities, or older people with daily tasks like housekeeping, organizing, and helping with appointments, bathing or dressing, shopping for groceries, cooking, and more. <\/p>\n \u201cThey could be things like helping someone who physically needs to transition from, you know, a chair into a bed or to use the restroom. So they could be physically demanding, having to lift an entire human being and get them repositioned or into a new setting,\u201d Clibbon said.<\/p>\n Then there are those aides with more training who help with life-sustaining tasks.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are people who are receiving in-home health services that if they did not receive them, they would die within a day or two. There are people who need to be suctioned and tube-fed, and those sorts of things, hourly or every other hour. So it\u2019s a detail-oriented, high-intensity, you have to be paying attention 100% of the time kind of job,\u201d Clibbon added.<\/p>\n As older people try hard to stay in their homes and not go to assisted living facilities, home health aides have become more important. According to an AARP report last year<\/a>, 24 million U.S. adults age 50 and older live alone. That includes 1 in 3 people age 55 to 74, and half of people age 75 and older.<\/p>\n Florida last for home health aide availability<\/p>\n Florida has the second-largest population of people over the age of 65, but ranks 50th in the availability of home health and personal care aides, with roughly 16 aides per 1,000 seniors in the state, according to the 2025 America\u2019s Health Rankings Senior Report <\/a>by the United Health Foundation.<\/p>\n Florida also has nearly 3.2 million people with a disability, according to the 2024 American Community Survey<\/a> by the U.S. Census Bureau, with 1.6 million under the age of 65.<\/p>\n \u201cSo most of these folks are going to be on Medicaid and Medicare. Often, private insurance does not cover these kinds of services anyway,\u201d Clibbon said.<\/p>\n [WATCH: UCF opens new nursing pavilion to help address statewide shortage]<\/p>\n According to Florida\u2019s Agency for Health Care Administration<\/a>, which sets the Medicaid reimbursement rates, home health aides received a maximum fee<\/a> of $18.04 per visit in 2025.<\/p>\n