Publications and Research
Document Type
Report
Publication Date
3-2021
Abstract
This report explores one potential solution to the mounting home care labor shortage in New York State: substantially raising wages for the state's home care workers. The analysis presents detailed projections, based on the best available data, of the economic effects of such an intervention, estimating the costs and benefits that would result. We find that public funding to raise home care wages would require significant resources, but those costs would be surpassed by the resulting savings, tax revenues, and economic spillover effects. The net economic gain would total at least $3.7 billion. Lifting wages would also help fill nearly 20,000 vacant home care positions each year and would create nearly 18,000 jobs in other industries by boosting local economic activity. These findings align with past studies on public investment in the care sector, which have found large effects on economic activity and on job creation both within and beyond care industries.
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