The Trump Administration has adopted tough new rules aimed at barring low-wage workers from coming to the US. Direct care workers such as personal care aides, home health aides, and certified nursing assistants will be among the biggest victims. But so will frail elders and younger people with disabilities, who will find it even more difficult to get the help [...]
The long-predicted shortage of personal care aides is here. And it is creating enormous challenges for frail older adults and people with disabilities living at home as well as for operators and residents of nursing homes and assisted living facilities. This shortage inevitably will drive up costs for services that already are unaffordable for many consumers. They will increase financial [...]
Tough new rules proposed by the Trump Administration would make it effectively impossible for immigrants to come to the US to work as home health aides or as staff at nursing homes or assisted living facilities. Because at least one million aides (one of every four) is an immigrant, the complex rules Trump proposed over the weekend would dry up [...]
The Trump Administration’s increasingly tough crackdown on immigrants threatens to worsen an already severe shortage of aides who care for frail older adults and younger people with disabilities. The shortage of direct care workers will affect those living at home as well as those receiving residential care. The problem already is squeezing nursing homes and assisted living facilities, as well [...]
As we age, become frail, and need personal assistance, we will increasingly require paid aides to help us with routine daily activities, such as bathing, dressing, or cooking. Demand for those aides will increase by 50 percent over just the next decade, to 3 million. But where will they come from? Aides are poorly paid, have little opportunity for advancement, [...]
Should the aides who provide home care for frail elders and younger people with disabilities receive a living wage and decent benefits? If they do, how can families, who often are unable to afford care today, be expected to pay those higher wages and benefits? Should the market be allowed to set these prices, or should government intervene through minimum [...]
The Obama Administration announced this week that home health aides and other direct care workers are entitled to protections under federal labor laws, including the right to both the minimum wage and overtime pay. The new rules, under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) won’t take effect until 2015. But they should be a significant benefit to many direct care [...]
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the dramatic decline in family caregivers who will be available to assist Baby Boomers in their old age. Today, according to estimates by AARP, there are about 7 people aged 45-64 to care for each person who is 80 or older. By 2030 there will be only 4 and by 2050 there [...]
Frail seniors, as well as adults with disabilities, often need help with routine medical care such as taking pills, receiving injections, getting oxygen, or managing catheters. Traditionally, this assistance has been provided only by nurses. But, especially for people living at home or even in assisted living facilities, having a nurse provide this routine care is prohibitively expensive and can lead to long delays in [...]