The hardest part of Culix Wibonele’s first job in long-term care was not getting injured.
Originally from Kenya, Wibonele worked as a certified nursing assistant in Atlanta in 2014. She went to the homes of mostly older clients, helping them with everything from bathing to cooking. Wibonele worked alone and sometimes had to lift clients much bigger than her.
It was demanding work and paid only $9 per hour with no benefits. If not for Wibonele’s second job as a babysitter and her husband’s income, they would not have made ends meet while supporting their four children.
“My paycheck, you know, was literally just nothing,” Wibonele said. “I was kind of shocked, like, the amount of work we (were) expected to do and the pay you get at the end.”
Wibonele’s experience reflects broader trends in the long-term care workforce. Those who tend to older adults in settings like private homes and assisted living facilities across the U.S. face low wages and risk of injury while the industry struggles with staff shortages, CNHI News and The Associated Press found as part of an examination of the state of America’s long-term care.
Meanwhile, demand for these workers is rising as the population ages. By 2030, roughly 20% of the U.S. population will be 65 or older, and that share will continue to grow, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
What kills me about this is that my mom has been having home care for years now. At the beginning the workers were making $20/hr. Now they’re making close to minimum.
I know FULL WELL how much this care costs. The fact that their pay has gone DOWN is the problem, and it’s just more enshittification.
Can you hire someone privately rather than through a company?
Yes, but if your caregiver gets sick, either they have to find coverage while they are sick, or you do on short notice.
With a company, they can reassign someone to fill in with little disruption (theoretically). The reality is, they are struggling with hiring and keeping people for all of the reasons listed in this thread, so even if you hire a company, maybe you will get someone to cover for your regular, or maybe you won’t.
Yeah all these jobs pay minimum wage. It’s no surprise they have a shortage.
Yeah that checks out. I’m not even american but I’ve got to say every single American healthcare worker I’ve ever met on Discord is CONSTANTLY and incurably miserable because they work inhumane hours for so little money that they actually can’t afford rent anyways. I know someone that spent an entire month doing 10-hour shifts 6 days a week which made him unbelievably sick and exhausted, and by the end of it then his paycheck didn’t cover replacing his car’s spare tyre. I know someone else who was ordered to come in every single day in the two weeks after her mother died and on the day of the funeral or she would be fired immediately and without recourse, while her boss took his fifth vacation of the year. I know someone who spent seven years studying to be a nurse and their debts are so bad that I’ve had to talk them out of suicide twice because the job doesn’t pay SHIT.
TLDR: Frankly I’m amazed America still has ANY healthcare workers based on the ones I’ve met. The situation isn’t great in a lot of places because medicine can be expensive, but good lord is it truly bad in America.
Same reason there are still schools in the US. Even public schools have people in charge who make 4x the salary of teachers, while most teachers can’t afford to live in the area they teach. The system relies entirely on enough people wanting to make the world a better place and undercutting those people.
Ooh something I can explain. Here where I am at to be a home care health helper I needed to install an app that tracks every move I make on my phone and pings it to the company. They do not provide a device unless you work full time. This requires multiple clients and driving. Plus, expect to be cleaning up every bodily fluid. All this for $14/hr.
I like the job, my client and her family are awesome and that’s the only perk to the job. I picked this up to help make ends meet after a job loss; and I have friends for life. I don’t really work for them anymore, but I do visit and say hello when I can.
Plus, expect to be cleaning up every bodily fluid. All this for $14/hr.
This was me and being a teacher.
I can do a fulfilling job that helps the world by teaching, or I can be a code monkey with a fraction of the work and stress for 5x more the salary.
Lifting human bodies is hard, especially when they’re obese (which many, many older US citizens are morbidly obese).
The people who do these jobs are underpaid and often expected to do the work of lifting large, obese bodies (300+lbs.) without the proper heavy lifting equipment.
The number of people who do these jobs who end up with long-term serious bodily harm like their backs being absolutely fucked up and needing surgery is too damn high.
Anecdotally, last time I was looking for a job, these kind of positions were offering about 50% less than the income you need to be considered poor enough to qualify for government assistance - you could work 80 hours a week and still need food stamps.
Nobody wants to hire anymore.
Nobody wants to hire anymore.
Bingo. You pay for what you get. Cheap bastards.
“Nobody wants to work anymore!” cry employers only willing to pay slave wages.
we spend all our money on human killing devices, or their management under the guise of ‘defense’. we let billionaires skate by paying no progressive taxes.
of course we cant pay for healthcare workers. healthcare is not a priority for the united states of wage slaves.
Large corporations pay 0 taxes, something is seriously wrong here. The government has been captured by the rich for years, it must end or society will collapse and we will all suffer. Gated communities will not save you when the shit hits the fan. We need regulations in healthcare and every other industry. The recent Chinese tariffs prove free market capitalism is a bunch of shit.
Still crazy when Biden started requiring more nurses at retirement homes everyone acted like it’s a great plan…
I kept getting down votes for pointing out that without enough nurses it would lead to anything remotely affordable being shut down because they can’t meet the requirements.
Everyone acted like we just have a bunch of nurses hanging out without any jobs to apply for, even tho we’re close to half a decade deep into a nursing shortage.
The problem is the cost of education, if it’s prohibitivly expensive, we’ll lack skilled workers.
We can’t just snap our fingers and more appear, even if we fixed the price of education there’s a delay.
Still crazy when Biden started requiring more nurses at retirement homes everyone acted like it’s a great plan…
You got legitimately downvoted for a whole bunch of your argument and how you presented it. I’m not going to revisit it here.
Says a lot that you blame the people asking for more heath care and not the bosses who refuse to pay a living wage.
and not the bosses who refuse to pay a living wage.
Bruh money is not the problem…
They could pay them more today, but that doesn’t solve what I was talking about about:
Nurses
Like I said, were half a decade into a nursing shortage, hospitals are paying out the ass, nursing homes already can’t compete, and people are still leaving the field.
Stop being mad, and read the headline of the article you’re reading. We can’t even staff the non nurses. To pay them, these wages will likely be cut more.
If they have to pay a competitive rate to get the nurses from hospitals, that cost gets passed on to clients or taken out of the pay of people like this article is about.
Profits is the last bucket it will be taken out of.
And people will be priced out of this because this is America
So if I’m reading you right your argument is the problem is that you actually have to pay people. Everything stems from the fact that if you pay people you might have lower profits. So it sounds like your argument is we need slaves. That seems to be the direction you’re heading here from what I can tell. You stop two steps short but I don’t see other direction you’re heading with this.
Also note you say profits but that’s incorrect, the current model is where profits are going to go down. Increasing the supply of workers allows it increasing the supply of clients which would increase profits. What you really mean to say is that short-term stock prices go down. Which we all know is speculation based.
I’m not familiar with other skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) outside of California but I believe if the skilled nursing facilities in California are struggling to survive, there is a possibility that others would as well with this requirement. Already operating margins have been shown to be at break even or negative before Biden’s initiatives [1], [2][3, note to add, i can count on my fingers, 10 yrs in HC, how many ppl pay privately for SNF].
The whole sector is honestly a mess unfortunately and I have so much to say. I will keep it simple though. I do not think the prices will rise or will be passed onto consumers like the above poster suggests because SNFs cannot control Medicare or MediCal reimbursement/payments (which is the bulk of their clientele). I think they will simply close down, especially with Bidens requirement, leaving less options for any patients needing short term care (iv abx before going home, wound care, rehab) and almost NO options for patients that don’t have money to live anywhere else. Already, sometimes I have to send long term pts 200+ miles because I can’t find any SNF beds closer. There has been a nursing shortage in SNF for so long, and Bidens requirement does not address any issues currently with the SNFs. And just adds a HUGE problem, likely to cause many SNFs to close down. That’s why I am against the nurse requirement.
