Living Wages and the Retention of Homecare Workers in San Francisco

This study records the impact on workforce retention of the nearly doubling of wages for homecare workers in San Francisco County over a 52-month period. Using descriptive statistics and logistic regression analysis I find that the annual retention rate of new providers rose from 39 percent to 74 percent following significant wage and benefit increases and that a $1 increase in the wage rate from$8 an hour – the national average wage for homecare – would increase retention by 17 percentage points. I also show that adding health insurance increases the retention rate by 21 percentage points

For Love, Money or Flexibility: Why people choose to work in consumer-directed homecare

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of wages and benefits (relative to other jobs available to workers), controlling for personal characteristics, on the recruitment and retention of providers working in a consumer-directed home care program. This article was written as part of a project titled ‘‘Building a High Quality Homecare Workforce: Wages, Benefits and Flexibility Matter,’’ which was supported by a research grant from the Better Jobs Better Care Program and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (#049213) and Atlantic Philanthropies (#12099) with direction and technical assistance provided by the Institute for the Future of Aging Services, American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging

Upgrading California’s Home Care Workforce: the impact of political Action and Unionization

Candace Howes examines the recent history of one of California\u27s rapidly growing occupations: home care. As the author\u27s analysis demonstrates, home care has been extensively transformed in recent years through large-scale unionization and coalition-based political action, which have led to major improvements in wages and benefits. Apart from providing many home care workers with better pay, the upgrading of this occupation has also improved the quality of care that clients receive, since higher wages make for lower turnover. The improved working and living conditions that result benefit caregivers and those they serve alike. The author\u27s empirical analysis has obvious ramifications for low-wage employment generally, particularly in the burgeoning health care and personal services sector

The Impact of a large wage increase on the workforce stability of IHSS Home Care Workers in San Francisco County

This study is one of the very few large-scale empirical investigations of the effect of wages on labor market outcomes in any direct care industry, and possibly the only such study specifically addressing conditions in the homecare industry. It records the impact of the nearly doubling of wages for IHSS homecare workers in San Francisco County over a 52 month period. The project is based on a unique database, which matches approximately 18,000 San Francisco County homecare workers in 26,115 unique matches to 15,500 service recipients between November 1997 and February 2002

Struggling to Provide: a portrait of Alameda County Homecare Workers

Alameda County employs nearly 8,000 homecare workers to help disabled and elderly persons live independently. Over one-third of these workers and their families—about 2,800—earn incomes that are below the official Federal poverty threshold. Many more struggle to meet basic daily needs and have to make difficult choices between caring for themselves and caring for others. Struggling to Provide is based on a recent survey of homecare workers in Alameda County that illustrates the insecure conditions in which many homecare workers live

National competitiveness, dynamics of adjustment, and long term economic growth: conceptual, empirical, and policy issues

ABSTRACT Although the concept of national competitiveness is widely used by policy makers at both the national and international levels, it has been the object of trenchant criticism in a series of influential contributions by Professor Krugman. He regards it as a meaningless concept and in the hands of naïve policy makers "a dangerous obsession" with harmful consequences. This paper challenges Professor Krugman's critique and suggests that its validity depends on a rather limited economic model whose assumptions are greatly at variance with the real world. The paper shows the analytical validity and usefulness of the concept specifically in relation to the UK and the US economies

Long term trends in the world economy: the gender dimension

Abstract This paper is concerned with exploring some of the gender implications of certain long term trends which have dominated the world economy in the post World War II period. It analyzes how these trends affect men and women, and to what extent if any, they are in turn affected by gender. The paper concentrates on the following trends: - unprecedented growth of the world economy between 1950 and 1973 (the Golden Age); - a sharp trend decline in world economic growth since 1973; - deindustrialization of the older industrial countries; - "the new technological paradigm," that is, the information and communications technology revolution; - the industrial revolution of the third world and its interruption in the 1980s in the Latin American and African countries and its continuation in Asia

Long term trends in the world economy: the gender dimension

This paper is concerned with exploring some of the gender implications of certain long term trends which have dominated the world economy in the post World War II period. It analyzes how these trends affect men and women, and to what extent if any, they are in turn affected by gender

Long term trends in the world economy: the gender dimension

Abstract This paper is concerned with exploring some of the gender implications of certain long term trends which have dominated the world economy in the post World War II period. It analyzes how these trends affect men and women, and to what extent if any, they are in turn affected by gender. The paper concentrates on the following trends: - unprecedented growth of the world economy between 1950 and 1973 (the Golden Age); - a sharp trend decline in world economic growth since 1973; - deindustrialization of the older industrial countries; - "the new technological paradigm," that is, the information and communications technology revolution; - the industrial revolution of the third world and its interruption in the 1980s in the Latin American and African countries and its continuation in Asia

California’s In-Home Supportive Services Program: Who is Served?

Governor Schwarzenegger\u27s preliminary 2004-05 Budget Bill proposed to eliminate a component of California\u27s In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) program serving approximately 68,000 individuals. This component, known as the Residual Program, included Protective Supervision and Domestic Care services and services provided by parents and spouses. Under the then existing regulations and the state\u27s approved state plan for Medicaid, these services did not qualify for shared financing with the Medicaid program and were thus funded solely by state and county sources. The objective of the administration\u27s proposal was to obtain an estimated net savings from the IHSS program in Fiscal Year 2005 of $366 million