The Direct Care News 
For direct care workers and their allies February 11, 2014
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The State of Direct Care Workers
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 | | Carla Washington |
"Everyone seems to agree, as the President emphasized several times in his State of the Union address, that people who work full-time should not live in poverty," writes Direct Care Alliance Executive Director Carla Washington in the Huffington Post. But for far too many direct care workers, she goes on, "hard work does not pay off, except in the satisfaction it gives them and the relationships they form with the people they assist." In The State of the Direct Care Worker, Washington writes about how helping to improve wages and benefits for direct care workers, one of the nation's poorest paid and fastest-growing workforces, is a powerful way to achieve goals the President outlined in his State of the Union Address--things like narrowing the income gap and making progress toward allowing everyone who works hard to share in the fruits of the American dream. Read her piece in the Huffington Post.
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Direct from Washington, D.C.
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Farm Bill with SNAP Funding Cuts Signed Into Law: On Friday, President Obama signed into law the Farm Bill, which includes $8 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program over the next ten years. SNAP, also known as the food stamp program, offers nutrition assistance to more than 47 million low-income individuals, including many direct care workers and their families. The cuts are a compromise achieved by Farm Bill conferees (a bipartisan group of U.S. senators and representatives) between the House Farm Bill, which included $39 billion in SNAP cuts over ten years, and the Senate version, which included $4 billion in SNAP cuts over the same time period. The law cuts SNAP benefits to approximately 850,000 households by an average of $90 per month.
Join the National Dialogue on Key Family Issues: On January 29, Congressional champions, workers and other advocates from across the country participated in an unprecedented national conversation about fair pay, paid sick days, paid family and medical leave, and child care, as well as the changes that will advance income equality and economic security for families, including direct care workers and their families. Listen to the conversation--which was hosted by DCA and our allies--and then take action. Call the U.S. Capitol switchboard (202.224.3121) and ask to be connected to your Congressperson's office (you can look up their names here.) Tell the person who answers the phone your name, the city where you live, and that you're a member of Direct Care Alliance. Then let them know that fair pay, paid sick days, paid family and medical leave, and affordable child care are important to you, and urge their office to add these topics to their agenda for policy reform.
DCA Signs onto CHIP Letter: DCA has signed onto a letter thanking President Obama and Congressional leaders for their efforts to protect and improve health coverage for U.S. children and urging them to take action this year to ensure continued funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program. CHIP is an important program for many direct care worker families, as it provides federal funding for states to establish public health insurance programs for children in low-income families. Almost eight million children are covered under the program, which is authorized under the Affordable Care Act through 2019 but only funded through 2015. Please consider joining the campaign to ensure that CHIP continues beyond fiscal year 2015. Urge your organization to sign the sign-on letter, and share this opportunity with other interested organizations in your network.
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Direct from the Headlines
| A MomsRising blog carnival on how the Affordable Care Act is affecting health care coverage includes posts from Direct Care Alliance member and home care worker Mohan Varghese and from DCA's Jessica Brill Ortiz and Elise Nakhnikian.
A worker from DCA Board Chair Tracy Dudzinski's home care coop is one of the experts quoted in this NPR report on the growing trend of seniors caring for seniors.
Janice Lynch Schuster on why direct care workers deserve and need a living wage.
Direct care workers made Salon Magazine's list of 11 jobs where an honest day's work will leave you in poverty.
PHI has a new fact sheet on home care workers.
Direct care workers at a Fresno assisted living home protested over unpaid wages and overtime totaling $1.6 million.
A new chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the huge growth in projected demand for direct care workers--especially home care workers--in the next eight years.
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Quick Links
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Get Direct Care Workers Covered: Advocates Launch New Medicaid Expansion Campaign in Texas
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 As part of our Get Direct Care Workers Covered initiative, DCA is working with direct care workers and ally organizations and coalitions in key states to advocate for Medicaid expansion, so more direct care workers and their families have access to affordable, quality health care. One of these states is Texas. Over six million Texans are uninsured, giving the state the highest rate of uninsured people in the U.S., but state lawmakers decided not to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Their decision means Texas has lost billions of federal dollars that could have expanded health coverage. And that leaves more than one million Texans, including many direct care workers and their families, in a health care coverage gap, ineligible for Medicaid and also for financial assistance with policies bought through the new health insurance exchange. Read more.
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