NPR did a story this morning on personal care attendants in Maryland, where the state pays them only five dollars an hour. That’s even less than the federal minimum wage of $5.15/hour. You can make more flipping burgers at McDonald’s than you can caring for a person with disabilities. In most states, PCAs are low-wage workers. In Minnesota, I think the average wage is $8-$10 per hour with few benefits and no chance in hell for a raise. Accordingly, the people who are attracted to PCA work tend to be the same people attracted to other low-wage jobs: college kids, newly-arrived immigrants, and people who simply don’t need/care to make much money. PCAs aren’t treated as professionals and their pay reflects that. This is an ongoing problem for both people with disabilities and their PCAs. Many PCAs provide extraordinary quality of care, but our society seems to regard this work with some degree of disdain.
If I had my way, PCAs would be trained and licensed professionals. A lot of people with disabilities disagree with me on the licensure thing, but I don’t see it as an onerous requirement. If we require hairdressers and truck drivers to be licensed, I don’t see why our standards should be lower for people providing personal care in someone’s home. The training wouldn’t have to be anything super intensive. But it should be enough to instill a sense a professionalism that is accompanied by a commensurate level of pay.
a respectful g’day from australia. ive been reading your blog for ages and just wanted to add to the information regarding PCA’s. Unfortunatley i dont have good news from oz. I was a PCA for 4yrs during uni and yes, the wages are low here too. I watched my other friends working in bars earn more and wondered mightly why this was so. However, i went on to become a nurse, and working as a PCA was one of the most rewarding experiences ive had. I recently attended my ex-clients 50th birthday, and there were 8 of his PCA’s there, and we are all now professionals of some description. While we laughed at his intellectual bent, we did talk about how he recieved and continues to recieve very little continuity of care. A PCA also tends to be a temporary job, not a career. And thats a shame. Anyway, thank you for your continuing excellence in raising topics, and pointing me in the way of good movies!!!
Jayne
This isn’t a long thought out response but maybe the work of PCAs being undervalued has something to do with people with disabilities being undervalued. PCAs are allowed to do all sorts of things that licensed nurses do. Why isn’t there a turf war going on for this? Is there any accountability? Who do they answer to for mistakes? With no professional training are they even accountable for mistakes? I’d love it if there was some positive way to get people who need PCAs eligible to receive help from licensed professional people who have training and want to work in this field. The general status of people with disabilities would increase at least as consumers if this happened.
Hi � Happened upon your site, thought the following free Crip humor eList would be something you liked. There�s an archive of over 300 jokes. � Marsha
Crip Humor ~ By and For the Severely Euphemized ~ Crip Humor strives to keep the jokes clean, but we don’t even try to keep ’em politically correct. The jokes will not be mean spirited ~ we wish to give a smile, not a frown. You can help by submitting jokes for and about PWDs [People With Disabilities.] If you submit something to Crip Humor and you know the original author, please
include that name. We wish to give the authors credit for their work.
To subscribe send a blank post —> CripHumor-subscribe@topica.com
To submit humor —> marsha1945@sbcglobal.net
To view archives go to our homepage and click on Read List at
~~~> http://www.topica.com/lists/CripHumor <~~~
ENJOY!!
i agree, completely.
(omg… most. use-impared. comment. EVER.)
lol