So, I was reading the local newspaper the other week, and what do you know, there's starting to be movement in the state where I live around advocacy for a higher minimum wage for healthcare workers, and it would peg the wage to around $24-25 an hour right now, and all that when I've been saying for several years now that you'd need something like $25 an hour to re-stabilize eldercare workplaces!
And, in that newspaper article, someone commented that people can walk out the door right now and get a better paying job at a fastfood restaurant, so why would you want those healthcare jobs.
Exactly what I've been saying!
It really was that sudden and completely unexpected wage-growth from the bottom beginning around 2021 and into 2022 that left many healthcare workplaces short-staffed... Over the past few years I've heard multiple out-of-touch Baby Boomers opine shit like "But those jobs have always been low-paid!", just not getting that there's pay gradations even among "low-paid" jobs, and how relatively equivalent pay found more easily elsewhere just severely reduces the number of people who want to get involved with jobs that require licenses certs etc. and would only lead to something "better" after years put in and more training and shifting around.
Unfortunately, I got involved in that sector like late 2017 into 2018 and I had just put in my time when the pandemic hit and stuck me in limbo, and then when things started letting up and I thought I could re-start my plans, boom, that pay situation of 2022.
And, though solutions are now being talked about, they'd still have to be adopted, and then they'd phase in over time. Like, it's already 2025, so let's say it's adopted in 2025 or 2026, when would things be fully phased in, like 2028 or 2029? And does "fully phased-in minimum wage" mean "re-stabilized workplaces"? Not necessarily! Stable workplaces can take time to build, so that might take even a few years more! So, that's already more than a **decade** after I'd decided to throw down with the sector, meaning, what's the point of even seeking to re-enter it again in hopes of something "better," when you're staring down the barrel of 2030 and you're like 50 years old?
Just another false start in my 15+ year run of bad luck, that many people don't understand, attributing bad outcomes to poor choices and lack of effort on my part.
Interestingly, when I mentioned some of this economic stuff to the one (lesbian) sister of my one (former) (assisted living client) with (disabilities), she said it didn't surprise her, given that economic chaos like that had followed previous pandemics, from what she'd read, back when she was looking to history for thinking through what might happen during and after the pandemic of our time... She had actually said something about economic chaos to me early during the pandemic, too, and what do you know, it turns out that she was right!
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