A new study shows that home health care workers and others who work in the human service fields are among some of the poorest state workers. It’s an issue that is statewide.
A CUNY Institute for State & Local Governance report highlights how 18% of social service workers in Orange, Rockland and Westchester area live in poverty. The problem is the worst in Elmira and Ithaca where 20% of the workers face poverty-level wages. Wages aren’t much better in the Buffalo, Binghamton and New York City areas.
Brian Bulluck says his love of human service work, caring for people with developmental disabilities, came from watching his grandmother work in the same home he does now.
“Coming home about three or four o’clock, she goes straight to the kitchen,” Bulluck said. “She makes the big meal for everybody to eat and to make sure everybody’s good. She’s going to ask ‘where this one is, where that one is?’ She wants to see our faces and make sure they’re good and do you need anything?”
Bulluck is a residence manager with The New York Foundling, a child welfare organization.
It’s challenging work, but the impact he makes on people at the end of the day makes it worth it. However, for more and more workers, it’s becoming harder as wages in the field stagnate.
“At the end of the interview, they ask how much we’re paying,” Bulluck said. “I tell them and once I tell them, the interview is over. They can’t do it, they can’t live off of what we’re offering.”
According to the report by CUNY’s Institute for State & Local Governance, 15% of human service workers across New York live in poverty. They’re workers that care for the elderly, children and developmentally disabled, but are some of the lowest paid workers in the state.
Child welfare official Jennifer March says these workers need a “BUMP.”
March is advocating for the passage of legislation that would require state offices to establish a base wage of 400% of the federal poverty level for certain human services workers. The legislation is supported by the Bring Up Minimum Pay campaign (BUMP).
“By establishing a wage floor of $29 an hour, which would get someone at full-time up to $60,000-a-year income, it would more than cut the poverty rate in half,” March said.
March says that raising the wage would keep these positions well-staffed and workers off SNAP and Medicaid.
“These workers are often working multiple jobs, like multiple shifts in the sector,” they said. “The ability to attract and retain workers is therefore negatively impact and there’s a very high turnover rate.”
The Empire Center, which calls itself a nonpartisan think tank, opposes this wage increase.
In a statement, senior fellow Bill Hammond says, in part, that “taxpayers would also take it on the chin, because the city and state would have to spend more simply to maintain the current level of services, let alone expand programs such as child care.”
March says that this wage increase would do more than just help human service workers.
“It would also trigger increased state tax revenue to the tune of about a billion and more importantly, increased economic activity across the state to the tune of $23 billion annually,” March said.
Bulluck says they need to be able to hire the right people; not just those who are willing to work for these low wages.
“We’re trying to hold families together at home and we’re also trying to create a loving environment for the people that we care for,” he said. “It’s hard to do if people aren’t happy.”