As the population ages, the need for caregivers is growing, but more restrictive immigration policies such as those being promoted by the Trump administration could have a negative impact on a caregiving industry that is already facing workforce shortages. The impact of this crisis in Maine came with the recent announcement that Home Care for Maine in Farmingdale would be closing its’ doors at the end of April due to “unsustainable financial losses due to federal reporting requirements, minimum wage increases, and low MaineCare reimbursement rates”, leaving six hundred seniors having to find services elsewhere as well as four-hundred employees looking for employment. Leaders of the Commission
and is especially dire in Maine as we have the oldest population in the country.
The Supreme Court Intervenes
The Supreme Court is currently considering the administration’s decision to end the program that protected young undocumented immigrants from deportation, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. Among other policies, the administration has also ended Temporary Protected Status — a program that gives immigrants who can’t return to their home countries due to violence or natural disaster permission to work and live in the United States — for several groups, including immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. In addition, another effort is to shift from “chain migration,” where people enter the country based on family ties, to immigration based on skills, which are presumably not caregiving skills but more high-tech abilities.
Immigrants in the Home Care Industry
While there is no data on specifically how many of the affected people work as caregivers, about one in four healthcare workers is an immigrant, according to the Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute (PHI), a nonprofit organization that studies the home care industry. That includes immigrants working as home health aides, personal care aides, and nursing assistants in home and community-based settings, nursing care facilities, assisted living facilities, group homes, intermediate care facilities, and hospitals. In addition, PHI found that immigrants constitute 31 percent of the home care workforce.
What lies ahead for Baby Boomers as they age
Meanwhile, the U.S. is already facing a growing shortfall of home health workers as 10,000 baby boomers turn 65 each day. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that there will be more than one million new caregiver positions created by 2028, a 36 percent increase. Caregiving jobs require hard work for low pay, so finding workers to take those jobs is difficult. Turnover is already high in the industry, and healthcare employers complain about the lack of available workers. Losing a large portion of the workforce will only make it harder to fill the positions. Experts also worry that a shortage of home-care workers will lead to more seniors being institutionalized.
What can you do?
With home care aides becoming harder to come by, families may have to get creative in trying to care for aging loved ones. In some circumstances, Medicaid will pay you to be a family caregiver which may help offset costs associated with someone having to reduce their hours at work or leave their job altogether. Discussing Long-term care and aging-in-place options while loved ones are still in good health is another way to head off the home care aide shortage as well. To read more about how immigration policies are affecting the caregiving industry, click here.
This article is for informational purposes only and shall not be construed as legal advice. No attorney-client relationship between the reader and Brennan & Rogers, PLLC, or its attorneys is intended. This article should not be used as a substitute for legal advice. Laws may vary from state to state, and the educational materials found in this article may not apply in all jurisdictions.
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