It’s been gratifying to hear news reporters and policy makers describe direct care workers as “essential” during the coronavirus pandemic.

I’m glad people outside our field are finally giving certified nursing assistants and home health aides the recognition they deserve for offering life-sustaining care and daily support to people who are older, live with disabilities, or have complex medical needs. But I can’t ignore a disturbing disconnect between words and actions.

Frontline workers may be receiving kudos on the evening news, but they still lack financial and professional support in the workplace. Frankly, I wonder how we as a nation can deem direct care workers “essential” when so many still view these workers as low-skilled people doing a job we don’t really value and in which we are unwilling to invest.

LeadingAge has been trying to fix this disconnect for many years. We’ve worked hard to strengthen the direct care workforce so more people will join our field and enjoy long and meaningful careers within aging services organizations.

We have much more work to do.

That work took a giant leap forward on Labor Day when LeadingAge published Making Care Work Pay, a report describing groundbreaking research on the substantial benefits that would accrue throughout our economy if direct care workers earned at least a living wage.

Using publicly available data and standard economic simulation techniques, LeadingAge researchers found that higher wages would benefit not only direct care workers, but also the direct care field, care recipients, and the economies of local communities in which direct care workers live. The overall price tag for the wage increases would be relatively modest, and those increases would actually pay for themselves through lower turnover and higher productivity.

I am very excited about this research. It provides LeadingAge with a strong foundation on which to build a broad action plan designed to strengthen our field by professionalizing the role of direct care workers. We’ll be finalizing that action plan over the next few months as we continue to study the research findings and confer with our partners and colleagues. But it will likely contain these elements:

• Advocating strongly for more government support to finance a wage increase for direct care workers. We fully recognize that paying direct care workers higher wages will require an investment on the part of government, which will need to pay more to providers so those providers can pay more to direct care workers.
• Raising awareness among policy makers at the state and federal levels about the widespread beneficial impact of these wage increases.
• Promoting the importance of robust training in competencies that workers must master so they can carry out increasingly complex jobs.
• Seeking support for programs through which direct care workers can earn career-building credentials.
• Envisioning new career paths that direct care workers can follow to become leaders in our field.

Over the next year, LeadingAge will focus squarely on improving the lives of direct care workers, demonstrating the value of the work they do, and making it easier for you to recruit and retain skilled workers.

Paying a living wage to direct care workers is a critical first step in all of that work—and a critical step in ensuring that a highly skilled direct care workforce will be there to support our growing older population for many years to come.

I look forward to working with you to take decisive action on the workforce issues that are so important to you and the people you serve. I hope we can count on your support as we embark on this exciting mission.