Caregivers Need Some Help
Caring for older adults long term can be grueling, frustrating, even maddening work.
The potential for abuse, especially in the home, cannot be taken lightly.
Adult care agencies know this. Their concern is magnified when wages for in-home workers fall too low and caseloads climb too high, as they have in the past few years.
“Case managers visit homes to check out things, but they can’t get out there often enough,” says industry spokesman Nick Beamer.
“Worker wages and case-management loads are two senior issues that must be addressed by state lawmakers to maintain a quality long-term care system.
“We are feeling a pinch on funding at the same time we are experiencing an explosion of older people in need of attention, understanding and compassion,” says Beamer. “We need a champion.”
Beamer is director of Aging and Long Term Care of Eastern Washington, an umbrella agency for a host of elder services in Eastern Washington. He is also chairman of the Washington Association of Area Agencies of Aging.
State-paid home care comes in two ways:
Private agencies supply in-home workers and charge the state $11.33 per hour. That includes some worker benefits, training, and supervision. The worker is paid about $7 an hour, or slightly more, depending on experience and type of care required.
Those in need of home care may also hire an independent caregiver. The state will pay $6.18. No benefits.
“Even so, many times people prefer this method so they can choose people they know to take care of them,” says Beamer. “It may be a relative - cousin, brother, whatever, but not a spouse. The cost can’t exceed 90 percent of the cost of nursing home care.”
Those in need can receive a lot more hours of care at $6.18 than at $11.33. So hourly costs often are the deciding factor in choosing a caregiver. “Generally, if a person needs more than 112 hours of care a month, they will have to go with the lower-paid independent worker,” Beamer says.
“We are most concerned about these independent workers,” he says. “They make just $6.18 an hour. They have no benefits, no worker’s compensation.
“They are on their own, and this is a hard job,” said Beamer. “The heavy lifting. The bathing. The personal care. The toileting. The meal preparation. The feeding. You’d have to pay most people a lot of money to do all this with a smile.”
Why would someone do so much for so little?
“I don’t know the answer,” said Beamer. “I do know that all anyone has to do is go to McDonald’s and put in a little time on the job there and they will get paid quite a bit more, and the work is easier and nicer.
“I also know that a lot of people are not in this for the money, obviously. Many have a real concern about relatives and friends.”
“So that’s why we’d like to see the Legislature do something to get these workers up into the $7 range - even the $8 range, if they could.”
That would put them right up there alongside people coming off welfare.
The “Welfare-to-Work” program generally defines $8.50 as a living wage, Beamer notes. “In this community,” Beamer calculates, “a living wage might be $17,000 to $18,000 a year - or $8.33 an hour.
“I doubt we can get the Legislature to come up with that much money,” says Beamer. “So we’ll probably try to get an increase of 50 cents an hour in each year of the biennium - bringing the pay up to $7.18 in the second year.”
And if lawmakers don’t take steps?
First, there will be a flight of workers, Beamer says, adding, “The market for people who get paid $6 to $8 is pretty tight. There are a lot of options for these people in this wage class. I see a lot of in-home workers leaving and taking other higher-paying jobs.”
The other legislative priority this session is paring the loads of case managers from 100-to-one this year to 75-to-one next year. Last year caseloads were even higher. But until recently, caseloads hovered around 50-to-one.
“That was the standard for years,” recalls Beamer. “We have slipped badly. We need to do better than this for our old people.”