The New York Caring Majority is a movement of older adults, disabled people, family caregivers, domestic workers, and home care providers from all across NY State. We're fighting for #FairPay4HomeCare and against private insurance companies!
Caring Majority
We organize older adults, disabled people, family caregivers, and home care workers to build a more caring and feminist economy — one with universal healthcare, long-term care, and dignity for caregivers.
GET INVOLVED: RSVP for our next monthly campaign meeting!
As part of the NY Caring Majority Coalition, JFREJ organizes Jews around intersections of age, disability, class, gender, and race to build a more caring economy — one with healthcare for all, universal long-term care, dignity and support for family caregivers, and fair pay and respect for care workers. Our goal is a society that truly values care in everyday life, and an economy that treats care-providing work as an essential sector of a sustainable economy; a world where all of us have the care and support we need to live full, healthy lives in climate resilient communities.
Home Care Savings & Reinvestment Act
The Problem: New York State gives billions of taxpayer dollars to private insurance companies that our state's Medicaid program uses to manage and control Medicaid recipients' access to long-term care. Right now, instead of distributing taxpayer dollars to home care providers, the private insurance companies — known as "Managed Long-Term Care" (MTLC) plans — hoard the money and deny services and supports that New Yorkers need to live full, independent lives.
The Solution: The Home Care Savings & Reinvestment Act (S7800/A8470) would change the Medicaid home care delivery system so that private insurance companies can no longer steal billions of dollars meant for home care. We're organizing to get it passed, and taking back up to $3 billion per year for home care worker wages.
Fair Pay For Home Care
The Problem: New York State has the worst home care shortage in the country. While many of us don’t think about it until we need it, 70% of us will need long-term care at some point in our lives. The vast majority of us want that care to happen in our own homes and communities. But there aren’t enough home care workers to meet the growing need. The people we rely on to care for our family members struggle to get by on poverty wages; the average annual salary for home care workers in NY is just $22,000. Unable to find home care, people rely solely on family caregivers — who themselves have to take off work in order to provide care — or are forced into institutions.
The Solution: Passing the Fair Pay for Home Care Act in the NY State Senate and Assembly will raise the wages of home care workers from ~$12.50/hour to at least $22.50/hour, bringing more people back into the home care workforce, and decreasing the home care shortage that leaves so many older adults and disabled people in New York without essential care. FULL Fair Pay for Home Care will raise care workers' wages by 150%, growing the sector and ending the crisis.
Current Status: In the spring of 2022, Gov. Hochul raised wages for home care workers for the first time in decades. She did so because thousands of older adults, disabled people, home care workers, family caregivers, and supporters organized and took action across New York State. But the small wage increase we won still isn't enough for home care workers to get by. Even worse: In 2023, Hochul tried to cut all the wage increases we won last year, but we were able to hold the line on a small raise — a couple of dollars — for home care workers over the next few years. Read our statement about the state budget passed in 2023.
We are still fighting for FULL #FairPay4HomeCare.
Resources
Rabbi Guy Austrian's D'var Torah on Faith for Fair Pay (2022). Click here to read.
#Faith4FairPay Social Media Toolkit (2022). Click here to access the google doc.
The Eldercare Dialogues: A Grassroots Strategy to Transform Long-Term Care (2014). Click here to download.
Domestic Workers and Employers: Because Your Liberation is Bound Up with Mine, Let Us Work Together (2015). Click here to download the essay.
A Covenant of Care: A Brit for Shalom Bayit Peace in Our Homes (2013). Click here to download.
Domestic Workers Justice Haggadah Supplement (2006). Click here to download it.
The New York Health Act
If we want to live in a New York that works for everyone who gives and receives care, we need to take action for single-payer health care now. We need the New York Health Act.
This legislation would provide guaranteed, comprehensive healthcare that includes long-term home- and community-based care to all New Yorkers, regardless of income. It is the result of years of organizing by women, seniors, people with disabilities, family caregivers, home care workers, unions, undocumented people, and the uninsured. We call ourselves the Caring Majority because we know that when we join forces and refuse to be pitted against each other, we are an unstoppable force, capable of creating a truly caring feminist economy. Learn more about the campaign to #PassNYHealth and get involved today!
