Reward hard work with fair pay

When the blizzard hit, Shirley Newsome, a Long Island homecare worker in her fifties, woke up more than two hours early to dig her car out. Shirley knew that the elderly woman with dementia she looks after as a homecare worker would be snowed in with no one else to rely on. During the storm, Shirley carried out all her regular duties, lifting her client out of bed, bathing her, cooking for her, and making sure she took her medications on time.

Shirley’s pay for this demanding and essential work? $10 an hour.

“I love caring for my elderly client and seeing the smile on her face,” Shirley said. “My mother taught me to always strive for excellence in everything I do, and I take a great deal of pride in my work. But even working 48 hours a week, stretching every single penny, I just can’t keep up with my bills.”

For Shirley, having her gas and electricity shut off – despite working full-time – is an all-too common occurrence. Luckily, when she got home the next morning from her 12-hour night shift, she could turn the lights on. She had gone down to the utility company office before the blizzard to have her electricity turned back on, for an extra fee of course.

This same cycle of falling behind on bills and hoping to squeak by is shared by tens of thousands of home care workers across New York state who are paid around $10 an hour. Of those workers, 56 percent are forced to rely on some form of public assistance, and 30 percent are on food stamps. Some even live in homeless shelters. And there are thousands of nursing assistants and other health care workers in our state’s hospitals, nursing homes, clinics and pharmacies who earn about the same. In total, over 3 million hardworking New Yorkers – including childcare workers, adjunct professors, security guards and airport workers – make less than $15 an hour.

Thanks to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, $15 an hour could be a reality if the Legislature passes his precedent-setting proposal to gradually raise the minimum wage by 2018 in New York City and by 2021 in the rest of the state. A vast majority of New Yorkers support raising the wage, and it is arguably the most pressing issue before the Legislature this session.

Low-wage workers do not fit many of the common stereotypes put forward by big business. According to a recent study by the Economic Policy Institute, 75 percent of workers making less than $15 are 25 years or older, and 66 percent work full-time.

And contrary to the scare tactics of some corporate CEOs, a $15 minimum wage would not hurt the economy; rather, it would help. More than 200 economists, including seven Nobel Prize winners, agree that raising the minimum wage would result in little to no job losses. In fact, it would actually boost the economy because when low-wage workers get a raise, they immediately spend that money at local businesses.

“My budget is $34 a week for food,” Shirley said. “And I try to buy only bruised and overripe fruits and vegetables from the store that are discounted. I have to really restrict and limit what I spend.”

A University of California-Berkeley report found that boosting the minimum wage would also reduce state and local government spending on public assistance for low-wage workers by as much as $2.9 billion per year.

Of course, raising the minimum wage is not only about boosting our state’s economy. It is really about the moral character of New York. What kind of state do we want to be? Do we want to be a place where only billionaires can thrive? Or do we believe that we are all connected to each other, and that every working New Yorker should have dignity, security and the opportunity to build a better future for their children?

That is the core question Gov. Cuomo has rightly put before state legislators, who must decide whether to pass the $15 minimum wage by April 1. It is Shirley’s hope, and the hope of health care workers throughout the state, that legislators will acknowledge that one day, they too will require care.

George Gresham is chair of the Mario Cuomo Campaign for Economic Justice and president of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East.