Nearly 130,000 caregivers around New York who take care of people with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (I/DD) are keeping closer tabs on whether the new state budget will include a pay raise for them.
The workers, known as direct support professionals (DSPs), currently earn not much more than minimum wage and are advocating for an 8.5% cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) to be included in the budget. These aides — who do everything from helping I/DD patients go to the bathroom to finding suitable employment — have extremely stressful jobs and are not adequately compensated for it, advocates say.
However, Governor Kathy Hochul, in her $227 billion spending plan released Feb. 1, called for a 2.5% wage increase, a number that is now part of the last-minute budget negotiations. Hochul’s increase comes on top of a 5.4% increase last year.
Assembly Member Rebecca Seawright, who represents the Upper East Side and serves as the assembly chair of the Committee on People with Disabilities, is fighting for the workers to get an 8.5% COLA.
Both the state assembly and state senate approved 8.5%, which would cost the state about $487 million.
Many DSPs, particularly those who work for agencies, are leaving the field to work elsewhere, due to the low wages and arduous work, Seawright said. Advocates say the workers at agencies earn around $16.50 per hour.
“Many are leaving to take jobs at, say, Target and the agencies across the state are hemorrhaging staff,” Seawright said. “There’s simply no incentive for these direct support professions to provide the physically taxing work around the clock.”
The industry is grabbling with high turnover and difficulty finding staff.
“We’ve had rallies and press conferences calling for the 8.5% COLA and that it needs to be enacted in this final budget that we’re negotiating,” she said.
Seawright is also fighting for a second measure in the budget called the Direct Support Wage Enhancement, which would allocate additional funds to provider agencies to boost the hourly pay of I/DD workers.
Currently, DSP’s who work for group homes owned by the state earn more than those who work for outside agencies. The state workers benefit from being part of a public employee union.
Seawright said the discrepancy between what the state workers earn and those who work for agencies is “highly inequitable.”
“This needs to be corrected as soon as possible and we are calling for it to be corrected in this state budget,” Seawright said.
Seawright said if the discrepancy is not addressed in the budget, she and state Senator John Mannion, who is the chair of the state Senate Disabilities Committee, will hold hearings in an attempt to rectify the issue.
The assemblywoman said that DSP’s pay has a significant impact on the people being cared for. When the staff leave, the relationships developed between the caregiver and patient end.
Meri Krasner, who has a 34-year-old son named Daniel who is in a HRC residence in Manhattan, said that DSP workers put in long hours and the job is tough.
“My son has extremely poor fine motor control,” Krasner said. “He cannot wipe himself safely … needs someone to brush his teeth, someone to shampoo his hair, someone to shave him, and someone to watch him eat because of his eating issues. It’s intensive work [for DSPs].”
Krasner said that the state needs to respect the work that DSPs do and raise their wages. “The wage is way too close to minimum wage…and the workers have to pay bills like everyone else.”
She said that the work incentive for DSPs is limited, leading some workers to miss shifts, putting pressure on others. She said she is worried as to who will take care of Daniel given the constant exit of DSPs.
Seawright says that the wage issue has a direct impact on the level of care that the disabled are receiving and that it affects their basic rights.
“To me, this is direct discrimination, because these people [ID/D] want the same home care attendant who has been taking care of them and who they’re emotionally accustomed to. We simply can’t keep doing business as usual.”
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