Low pay is considered one of the reasons long-term care employers have difficulty attracting and retaining workers, especially for lower-level positions — for instance, certified nursing assistants or dining services — where workers sometimes earn less than $15 an hour. And the industry is not alone.
New research from Boston-based Oxfam America indicates that 51.9 million workers, 31.9% of the nation’s workforce, earn less than $15 an hour.
“I would say that direct care workers exemplify the findings and recommendations from this report,” Kezia Scales, director of policy research at PHI, told the McKnight’s Business Daily. “Direct care workers are majority women of color and earn a median wage of just $13.56 an hour, an amount that has barely increased over the past decade (adjusting for inflation).”
Scales said that, in her opinion, raising the federal minimum wage would benefit a significant proportion of this workforce. She cited a 2019 study that found that three-fourths of all nursing assistants in nursing homes would earn more than $3 more per hour under a $15/hour minimum wage law.
“We need to think beyond minimum wages for direct care workers. We need to think ambitiously about how to establish competitive wages, so that we can recruit and retain more direct care workers to meet ever-growing demand,” Scales said.
Millions of low-wage workers are parents trying to raise children on low wages, the Oxfam America found. Among working single parents, 57% (11.2 million people) earn less than $15 an hour, the group said.
Women are more likely than men to earn less than $15 an hour, according to the research. Forty percent of women earn less than that amount, compared with 25% of men. Race, too, plays a role. Although 26% of white workers earn less than $15 an hour, 46% of Hispanic/Latinx workers do, and 47% of Black workers earn less than $15.
And it is not overwhelmingly teenagers who work in low-paying jobs. The study shows that 89% of workers earning $15 or less an hour are aged 20 or more years.
“Just 30 years ago, the average pay gap between CEOs and workers was 61 to 1; by 2019, it had soared to 320 to 1,” an Oxfam America fact sheet reads. “The average CEO made $13,940,000, while a worker paid the federal minimum wage worker made $15,080: a gap of 924 to 1.”
