- On Tuesday, hundreds of
care workers marched in DC to demand the passage of theBuild Back Better Act. - The Democrats' $1.75 trillion package would put $150 billion toward home care, including wages.
Deborah McAllister works 24/7 — but she isn't paid.
That's because McAllister, 58, is a home care worker. She cares for her mother full time in her hometown of Burgaw, North Carolina. She's been doing that work for about seven or eight years.
"I know my mother needed me, so I just stepped up to the plate," McAllister told Insider.
McAllister is one of hundreds of care workers calling for Democrats to pass their social spending package, which contains $150 billion for home care that will go towards expanding Medicaid coverage and bringing up wages. McAllister joined other care workers in marching on the Capitol on Tuesday to call for the passage of the Build Back Better Act; Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi delivered remarks to the group.
Currently, McAllister's mother is one of the many not eligible for Medicaid; if she were to receive it, McAllister said she could hire additional help, and go back into the workforce. She'd like to work as a care worker for a company that offers a wage while balancing her caregiving responsibilities at home.
"They don't have anything out there for me to get any income to get compensated for taking care of her," McAllister said of her current situation. "So now I can't go out into the workforce, I got to stay there, and provide the best care that I can for her."
Currently, Democrats are headed into more negotiations over the fate of the party-line package. It's been a rocky road, with proposed spending getting pared down from $3.5 trillion (already a compromise for progressives) to $1.75 trillion following resistance from centrists like Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Provisions like five more years of the extended child tax credit and free community college were nixed. Even so, Manchin seems in no rush to keep the bill moving.
"This profession has been disenfranchised, disrespected — this is not an easy job to have. We're caregivers, we're psychologists, we're friends," Tony Hedgepeth, a home healthcare worker in Virginia, said. Hedgepeth, a veteran, added: "We do so much in a day."
As of July 2021, the average hourly wage for home healthcare workers was $13.81, according to another EPI report. A report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that median pay for home health and personal care aides was $13.02 an hour, coming to $27,080 annually. The official poverty wage in the US for a family of four is $26,500.
An analysis from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found that raising the minimum wage to $15 by 2025 — a proposal Democrats also shot down earlier this year — would impact 1.9 million direct care workers. About 1 million of those workers are in home care. Broadly, 90% of the workers who would get a raise are female, according to EPI; 50% of the workers who would see a wage hike are Hispanic, Black, or Asian American and Pacific Islander.
"Our elected officials don't want to commit to giving us that pay. They know we deserve it," Hedgepeth, 63, said. "A lot of them lived through it. They know that people won't be able to go to work without us."
Both McAllister and Hedgepeth said that the ability to unionize was a top priority, a sentiment that comes as labor unions begin to ramp up and flex their power around the country. Domestic workers are not covered under the National Labor Relations Act.
For now, workers are demanding that the social spending package pass, and usher in higher wages and stronger working conditions for the care
"I'm just not fighting for myself," McAllister said. "I'm fighting for others who might have never thought they would be in this position like I am right now."