Many in-home workers live in poverty
16th December 2013 · 0 Comments
By Freddie Allen
NNPA Washington Correspondent
WASHINGTON (NNPA) – In-home workers, 90 percent of them women, often live in poverty, earn low wages and work grueling hours without many of the protections enjoyed by most workers, according to a recent study by the Economic Policy Institute, a non-profit think tank focused on public policy that affects low- and middle-income families.
These are the workers who cook meals, clean homes and care for the elderly, the disabled and children. Nearly 20 percent of all in-home workers are Black even though Blacks account for less than 11 percent (10.9 percent) of workers in other jobs.
The EPI study looked at economic impact that low wages and thin benefits earned by in-home workers has on their lives.
According to the report, The Occupational Safety and Health Act doesn’t apply to people who hire domestic workers their own homes.
Unlike autoworkers, teachers and even professional athletes, in-home workers can’t organize to achieve better benefits and contracts. The fact that they often work alone contributes to their marginalization.
“Federal antidiscrimination laws, such as the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, all generally only cover employers with multiple employees, meaning most in-home workers are excluded from these protections. This is also true of the Family and Medical Leave Act,” stated the report.
In-home workers make about six dollars less than workers in other occupations and roughly 12 percent of in-home workers receive health benefits from their employers. More than 23 percent of in-home workers live below the poverty line, compared to just 6.5 percent of other workers.
“More than half—51.4 percent—of in-home workers live below twice the poverty line, compared with 20.8 percent of workers in other occupations, stated the report, earning less than what it takes to make ends meet.
Despite low wages and subpar benefits, researchers estimate that the in-home worker industry will grow at a rate that’s 40 percent faster than other occupations by 2020, due largely to the incredible growth among strong personal care aides and home health aides.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Employment of home health aides is expected to grow by 69 percent from 2010 to 2020, much faster than the average for all occupations. Employment of personal care aides is expected to grow by 70 percent from 2010 to 2020, much faster than the average for all occupations.”
As the industry grows, employing more minorities that will be responsible in funding entitlement programs like Social Security, it will become increasingly more important to ensure that they earn fair wages.
“Though individual employers of in-home workers can and should improve their employees’ wages and benefits, policy changes at the state and federal level are needed to rectify the exclusion of many in-home workers from employment and labor laws,” stated the report.
The EPI report noted that New York, Hawaii, and California have already started to develop protection programs for domestic workers.
The report also recommended establishing paid sick days, a stronger safety net and raising the minimum wage which would help to buoy the pay earned by in-home workers.
In a press release on the EPI report, economist Heidi Shierholz said that in-home workers are “a critical and growing part of the economy, yet, they are grievously underpaid and lack the benefits that similar workers receive in other sectors.”
Shierholz continued: “Our country is wealthy enough so that workers who play such vital caretaking roles should be able to earn a decent wage. We need policies to protect these workers and help ensure they’re paid what they deserve.”
What Mandela meant to America
By Marc H. Morial
President/CEO
National Urban League
Our victory in defeating apartheid was your victory too. We know that our pride in regaining our dignity is shared by you. To you, and to all of the American people who supported the anti-apartheid struggle, we thank you from the bottom of our heart for your solidarity, and for having cared.”
Nelson Mandela,
September 1998, New York City
Nelson Mandela’s heroic struggle for a free, non-racial and democratic South Africa inspired freedom-loving people around the world but was especially intertwined with the spirit of the Civil Rights Movement in America. African Americans felt a special relationship with Mandela, a man who, like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., endured years of persecution and discrimination in pursuit of freedom and equal opportunity for his people.
Both Mandela and King were unafraid to agitate for justice and equality, but each ultimately changed the course of history through the power of reconciliation and unity. Though Dr. King was 11 years younger, Mandela often spoke of his admiration for America’s fallen civil rights champion. In fact, in his 1993 Nobel Peace Prize speech, Mandela praised King, saying, “It will not be presumptuous of us if we also add, among our predecessors, the name of another outstanding Nobel Peace Prize winner, the late African-American statesman and internationalist, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. He, too, grappled with and died in the effort to make a contribution to the just solution of the same great issues of the day which we have had to face as South Africans.”
Twenty-nine years earlier, in his own Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Dr. King had related the American civil rights struggle to the freedom movement in South Africa. He said, “So you honor the dedicated pilots of our struggle who have sat at the controls as the freedom movement soared into orbit. You honor, once again, Chief Luthuli [Africa’s first Nobel Peace Prize winner and Mandela mentor] of South Africa, whose struggles with and for his people, are still met with the most brutal expression of man’s inhumanity to man.”
The connections between our struggles did not end there. In the 1970s American youth on college campuses across the country held large anti-apartheid demonstrations, urging the United States to divest its investments in South Africa until the government ended its brutal subjugation of the majority Black population. While I was a student at Georgetown University Law Center in 1981, I co-led an effort to boycott the cafeteria operator because of its investments in South Africa. During this same period, I was a member of the leadership team of the National Black Law Students Association that pushed for divestment of South African investments by U.S. companies. Early in my career, I was arrested at the South African Embassy as part of a mass, peaceful protest led by Congressman Walter Fauntroy, Mary Frances Berry and Randall Robinson, founder of TransAfrica, in support of U.S. economic sanctions against South Africa.
After years of demonstrations, arrests and political action, the U.S. Congress finally passed the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986. Sponsored by California Congressman Ron Dellums and supported by the Congress-ional Black Caucus, the Act imposed significant economic sanctions against the government of South Africa and was a major factor in the abolishment of the system of apartheid in 1991.
As the world mourns the passing and celebrates the life of Nelson Mandela, America is especially indebted to the great leader for his inspiration and solidarity in our shared struggle for human freedom, equal opportunity and justice for all.
This article originally published in the December 16, 2013 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
