Legislature balks on significant pay bump for home health aide
Texas lawmakers aren’t expected to approve any substantial wage increases for attendants who care for aging Medicaid recipients with disabilities, despite state agency requests for a raise and widespread evidence of a workforce shortage.
The Texas Health and Human Services Commission has asked the Legislature this session to raise the $8 hourly base wage for attendants by 50 cents, saying that they “can earn higher wages in the fast food and other industries that hire low-wage workers.” Advocacy groups are pushing for $15 an hour.
The Texas House, however, has proposed raising the base wage by just 10 cents, and the Texas Senate envisions no raise.
With less than half of the legislative session left and most of the budget spoken for by larger priorities such as boosting school spending and providing homeowners with property tax relief, the likelihood of a pay raise is slipping, even though Medicaid recipients have for years pushed for higher wages for their attendants. Raising the hourly wage of attendants by 50 cents would cost the state about $150 million over the next two-year budget.
“It’s a matter of life and death for me,” said 63-year-old East Austin resident Gene Rodgers, who is paralyzed from the head down after he fell from a cliff at age 17. “With inflation, the buying power of (attendants’) wages has gone down. They could be flipping burgers for 15 bucks an hour or working at Amazon.”
Read more: https://www.statesman.com/news/20190408/legislature-balks-on-significant-pay-bump-for-home-health-aides
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