By Du Guohui
August 7, 2013
August 7, 2013 --With the "baby boom" population aging in New York and other American cities, more and more people are entering into old age, and the more and more and more people are involved in care for the elderly. The Alliance for a Greater New York released their study on elderly care, based on results of survey questions. The results show that there are an increasing number of elderly people in need of care, while being cared for by caregivers who want to earn more money to improve the quality of care.
An 8 month investigation of 1,200 cases show, in New York, there are more than one hundred million people involved in caring for the elderly or people with disabilities, with one in every five adults a caregiver. However, some of the existing problems limit the development of the industry.
"New York City's home care agencies employ more than 100,000 home care workers in New York City, this is becoming the fastest-growing industry in our economy. But New York State regulations, and industry wages to some extent limit the development of the industry, and cause high turnover in the workforce,” said policy and legislative director Helen Schaub 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East.
"Unfortunately, home care jobs are not good jobs, and don’t provide family-sustaining wages, and many elderly people and families also struggle to find high-quality care," said Maya Pinto, senior analyst at ALIGN.
The findings show that home care workers and people who receive care agreed to accept and improve home care workers' wages are the most important priority. 62% of home care practitioners had an income of less than $ 25,000, under the poverty line for a family of four.
In the greater New York area, thousands of ethnic Chinese are engaged in home care and also in a similar situation. “There’s a large population of Chinese domestic workers and these workers receive very low wages and they’re subjected sometimes to very exploitative working conditions,” expressed Maya Pinto.
More than half of those surveyed who received care were generally satisfied, but there are 40% of people who said they received poor or fair quality care. 52% of people believe that the primary improvement method is to “improve monitoring of abuse and neglect”, followed by "providing better quality training for home care workers."
New York State Assemblyman Richard Gottfried spoke highly of the report, saying the recommendations and findings are important.
It is reported that in the next decade, home care will become the strongest growth industry in New York City, and is expected to provide 70,006 jobs.
To read the full article, visit Epoch Times. (In Mandarin)