Fair Pay for Precious Work AIMS C. CONEY JR. AND CHIP PETERS Caregivers for the mentally handicapped and others deserve a humane wage

Individuals who care for children, the elderly, mentally retarded, mentally ill or physically handicapped perform some of Pennsylvania’s most important work. But so far, the low wages paid to caregivers show that this work is not valued. Workers and those they care for pay the price.

While delivered by private, often not-for-profit providers, much of the money for caregiving comes from government - few families could shoulder the full burden of child care, elder care or mental health and mental retardation services on their own. For this reason, it is government funding and policy, not the "market," that have the most influence on wages.

In Pennsylvania, the Ridge administration has recognized the importance of caregiving by increasing services. In child care, services have expanded to meet the needs of low-income families making the transition from welfare to work. In the area of services for the mentally retarded, the governor proposed on Feb. 5 a major expansion of community services. Over five years, 14,000 more mentally retarded Pennsylvanians will receive care.

While expanding service access is a positive development, funding remains too paltry to pay for decent wages. In mental health and retardation, direct-care workers in Pennsylvania earn only about $8 per hour. Even if workers work 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year - which many don't - they earn only about $16,000 per year. This is below the official poverty level for a family of four. Moreover, while the new funds in the governor's proposal for expanding mental retardation services might have ameliorated the poor pay problem, the Department of Public Welfare has specified that these funds can not be spent on the wages of existing employees.

In elder care and child care, the pay problem is, if anything, worse than in the mental health/mental retardation field. In child care, annual earnings for typical workers are only about $13,000 per year. According to one study, child-care workers' earnings compared with the overall wage level are lower in Pennsylvania than in any other state.

With low unemployment, hourly wages in most of the private sector have been rising. But in caregiving occupations - because public funding places a constraint on what providers can pay - wages have stayed flat or declined further. Indeed, by boosting entry level wages at retail jobs, a tight labor market has exacerbated the problems human service providers face holding onto their employees.

As common sense would dictate - and study after study has proved - low wages and high work force turnover translate into lower quality care. The new hire performing a feeding program with a mentally retarded child does not know the child. The person holding the hand of your mother with Alzheimer's is a complete stranger. The loving child care worker who made Johnny smile instead of cry when dropped off at day care just quit so that she could earn more money as a telephone customer service representative.

It's easy to blame Harrisburg for the low pay in human services. But the reality is that politicians respond to public pressure. Indeed, when the child care community organized to make the case for higher quality care, combining a lobby day in Harrisburg with arguments from business insiders about work force quality, the Ridge administration raised reimbursement rates 14 percent - not enough, but a start. (How much of that reimbursement increase makes its way to child care teachers and aides remains to be seen.)

In short, we make decisions collectively - as a community - about what caregiver jobs pay and hence the quality of services delivered. And we need to make a collective decision to raise caregiver pay through increases in state government funding that are dedicated to increasing wages. Without that, the economic reality is that worker pay is not going to go up.

If you think that the wages of caregivers say something about the kind of society we are, and you pride yourself on Pennsylvania's strong tradition of family and community, you need to make your voice heard. You need to join the emerging coalition advocating decent wages for Pennsylvania's caregivers.