New York home care advocates claim Gov. Kathy Hochul’s (D) proposed 2024 fiscal year budget would worsen the state’s direct care crisis. The New York Caring Majority blasted a proposal that would freeze home care workers’ hourly wages at $18, regardless of an increase in New York’s minimum wage.
“As New York’s population ages and the home care worker shortage grows, Governor Hochul is throwing gasoline on a fire” the organization said in a statement. “This budget will ensure the state’s home care shortage will only deepen in the years to come.”
The 262-page budget Hochul released last week states: “At no time shall the minimum wage for a home care aide be higher than eighteen dollars until such time as the minimum wage rate pursuant to subdivision one-a of section six hundred fifty-two of the labor law in the locality of the state in which such home care aide works is higher than eighteen dollars.”
Hochul’s budget plan calls for the minimum wage, which is currently $14.20, to be indexed to inflation and capped at 3% annually. Home care advocates argue if the minimum wage reaches $18, direct care jobs would once again become low-wage positions and make it difficult for the state to attract new workers to the field.
The direct care industry is currently the largest and fastest growing segment of the Empire State’s economy, according to recent analysis by PHI National. The nonprofit estimates approximately 560,000 people work in the industry and projects New York will need to nearly double the number of those workers by the end of the decade.
New York home care workers received a $3 hourly wage hike in the budget Hochel signed into law last summer. The budget also included $1.2 billion in bonuses for frontline healthcare workers, including home health aides.
