FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Tuesday, March 29, 2022
Contact: Alex Thompson, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., 518-465-4650
Albany, NY – Supporters of the Fair Pay for Home Care Act recognize that the full cost of implementing the Act, which raises the home care worker minimum wage by 150% to $22.50/hour, is not inexpensive. It may cost as much as $5 billion per year, but at least half of this will be paid for by the Federal Government. These supporters understand and believe that this investment is necessary to recruit and retain the workforce necessary to deliver these life-saving services to an elderly and disabled population that continues to grow in New York. The current workforce is already hemorrhaging given the low pay and high demands of the job. There is no viable alternative to the Fair Pay for Home Care Act under consideration.
To offset the cost of these investments, these supporters have pointed to a recently updated study by the CUNY Graduate School of Labor and Urban Studies which concluded:
- Raising wages is a highly effective strategy for resolving the home care shortage. Higher wages would reduce turnover and attract new workers to the field, while creating large-scale economic benefits for New York State.
- In the upcoming budget (FY23) the state would contribute $630 million, which will yield savings, revenue, and economic activity of $1.7 billion—net state economic benefits of more than $1 billion.
- Overall, raising home care wages to the proposed target levels would generate net benefits, as the cost of doing so is greatly exceeded by the savings, revenues, and economic activity that would result. For the first full year (FY24), the state would contribute $2.5 billion, which will yield economic benefits totaling $8.8 billion and net gains of $6.3 billion.
An investment that will more than pay for itself in economic activity? Sound familiar? How about from yesterday’s press release from Governor Hochul announcing a deal to publicly finance a new stadium for the Buffalo Bills:
“The Governor will advance a $600 million proposal in the state budget, and Erie County will contribute $250 million. The economic and tax impacts generated from the team will support more than 100 percent of the public share of the new stadium cost.”
Somehow, this statement seems to be taken at face value. In contrast, the CUNY Study on Fair Pay for Home Care seems to have fallen on deaf ears. The Governor’s Office and her Division of the Budget are completely disregarding it.
Won’t paying low wage workers a fair wage both increase income tax receipts and sales taxes on the goods and services that they purchase with these wages? Won’t getting workers who are on public assistance despite their employed status off public assistance save the State money? Isn’t reducing the costs of turning over and retraining new replacement staff an economic benefit? Of course! is the answer to all of these questions.
Dollars invested in the home care workforce, which is composed overwhelmingly by low-income women of color, is frankly more important than a replacement stadium, and it will provide the home care services that New York’s families will need for their loved ones in the future. And is has equal economic impact and value, maybe more.
Why should a dollar given to billionaires be the only dollar that counts as an investment?
##