Jobs and aging policy: What the President didn’t say

I listened to President Obama’s marathon State of the Union message last night with increasing dismay.  NOT ONE WORD about aging policy or how his administration plans to address the nation’s exponentially growing need for housing, transportation, health care providers, etc. aimed at an aging population.   There are severe shortages of qualified persons to work in all these areas.  Will the President’s jobs program include training for caregivers and others who work with the elderly? 

TheParaprofessional Health Institute has prepared a fact sheet discussing how creating high-quality jobs in the eldercare/disability care sectors would generate significant economic and social benefits.  Here’s an excerpt from the document:  

The eldercare/disability services industry employs more people than nearly any other industry in the country. Direct-care jobs are the employment core of this industry and are among the nation’s fastest-growing occupations. Improving the quality of these jobs—home health aide, certified nurse aide and personal care attendant—is not only vital to our social infrastructure, but has the potential to drive economic growth, particularly within low-income communities. Given the sheer numbers of these occupations today as well as their tremendous expected growth, direct-care jobs are uniquely positioned to help repair and stabilize our faltering economy

• Direct-care jobs undergird local economies. Direct-care jobs constitute a $56 billion economic engine fueled by the personal income that over 3 million direct-care workers spend largely on locally produced goods and services in their communities.
• Direct-care workers support employed family caregivers and their employers.A stable, well-prepared direct-care workforce is critical for supporting an estimated 15.9 million additional workers who balance full-time employment with caregiving for a family member over age 18. The lost productivity of family caregivers who are also employed full time is estimated to cost employers $33.6 billion annually, with a third of the costs attributable to workers either leaving their jobs or switching from full- to part-time work in order to accommodate their family caregiving responsibilities.
• Poor quality direct-care jobs strain public resources. The vast majority of directcare jobs are publicly funded, paid for by Medicaid and Medicare. However, high rates of annual turnover—more than 70 percent in nursing homes, and between 40 and 60 percent in home care agencies—lead to staggering turnover costs conservatively totaling $5 billion annually. In addition, 40 percent of directcare workers live in households that rely on one or more public benefits, such as Medicaid or food stamps, reflecting the heavy public subsidies required to compensate for the low wages and inadequate benefits received by most of these workers.

Read more on this issue from PHI’s Policy Brief

Eldercare/Disability Services: Untapped Engine for Job Creation and Economic Growth

http://www.directcareclearinghouse.org/download/PHI%20FactSheetNo2.pdf