Why Homeless People Aren’t Working … Or Working And Homeless Anyway

The tool I use to produce this blog provides some interesting stats — among them, my most-viewed posts. I note, with interest, that an old post makes the top-viewed list almost every week.

It’s entitled “Why Don’t Homeless People Just Get a Job?” Are people actually asking this, I wonder.

At the time I wrote, the recession was in full swing. Now it’s officially 29 months behind us. Yet we’re facing a big jobs crisis.

Not Enough Jobs

The unemployment rate is higher — stuck at about 9%. The number of jobless people actively looking has increased from 13.2 million to nearly 13.9 million.

And the economy has shed about 1.3 million more jobs. It would need to create more than 11 million to bring the unemployment rate back down to when the recession set in.

So one reason homeless people don’t get jobs is the same as the reason millions of housed people don’t. There just aren’t enough jobs out there.

But, of course, it’s not that simple.

Challenges to Getting the Jobs Out There

The very fact of homelessness makes work searches more challenging. Blogger Steve Samra — the source for my original post — speaks from first-hand experience about these.

But, as with the current job shortage, the biggest challenges, I think, aren’t unique to homeless people. They have to do with the reason people are homeless to begin with, i.e., not enough income to pay for a roof over their heads.

For some, there are barriers to gaining — and maintaining — employment of any kind. These include mental and physical health problems, substance abuse and other severe disabilities.

For those not too disabled to work, finding a job and then going to it may cost more than they can pay.

There are up-front and ongoing transportation costs. For some, also formidable child care costs and/or the also formidable costs of home care services for disabled family members who can’t get them through Medicaid.

And then there’s the big issue of job requirements.

Many communities have passed laws to clear homeless people off the streets — possibly away altogether. So homeless job seekers may have criminal records for loitering, storing belongings on public property, etc.

The National Employment Law Project reports that many employers are running criminal background checks to screen out applicants — even for entry-level jobs that involve negligible security risks. Others post job announcements that pre-screen.

And now applicants are being screened out because of bad credit records — an ironic Catch-22 for people who are trying to get work that will enable them to pay their bills.

Last but certainly not least is the issue of education credentials.

The monthly Bureau of Labor Statistics reports consistently show the highest unemployment rates for adult job seekers with less than a high school diploma or GED. Rates drop at each education level — down to a current 4.4% for those with a bachelors degree or higher.

We read that college graduates are accepting jobs as wait staff, truck drivers, sales clerks and the like. That’s tough competition for those who traditionally fill these jobs.

Working, But Still Homeless

Yet some fraction of homeless people are working. No national figure. So a little back-of-the-envelope from my hometown.

According to last January’s homeless count, 38% of homeless adults in families and 20% of single adults in the Washington, D.C. metro area were working.

No way of knowing how many of them were working full time or at what. We do know, however, that a full-time minimum wage job in the District, where the hourly rate is $1 higher than the federal minimum, would yield an annual take-home income of a little under $16,440.*

Rent on a modest one-bedroom apartment, including basic utilities would leave the worker with about $44.00 per month for all other expenses — less than the costs of bus fare to and home from a five-day a week job.

In short, we’ve got a complex of policy issues here — jobs, income supports, anti-homelessness laws, hiring practices, education, affordable housing and a minimum wage that’s worth less than it was 40 years ago.

There, Googlers. Aren’t you glad you asked? I am.

* This reflects deductions for Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes at the current reduced rate, but not what might be withheld for income taxes.

Home Care Workers Denied Basic Wage Rights

My sister died just the way she wanted to. At home, with her bed near the window so that she could look out and watch her cats playing.

This was possible only because she had 24/7 home health care, provided by a quiet, caring, capable aide.

Most people who receive home care aren’t in the last stages of a fatal disease. Some are like my guest blogger Laura and her brother, whose disabilities would make it unsafe for them to be home alone.

Most, however, are elderly people who need some variable mix of services to continue living independently. My mother-in-law, for example, is able to contentedly “age in place” because a home health aide comes in to help with housekeeping, grocery shopping and the like.

All told, more than 10.3 million Americans need some form of long-term care. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services expects the number to rise to 27 million by 2050.

Will enough qualified care workers be available to serve the many millions who’ll be best off at home? Doubtful unless some major policy changes are made.

Here’s the first — and to me a shocker. Home care workers* are, at this point, exempt from federal minimum wage and overtime requirements.

Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia provide some coverage under their own wage laws. Here in the District, as in five of these states, only the minimum wage is required — not the overtime rate.

As the National Employment Law Project explains, the federal exemptions reflect an over-broad interpretation of a carve-out Congress made when it extended coverage under the Fair Labor Standards Act to domestic workers.

NELP recommends two related regulatory fixes. No Congressional action required — thank heavens! There is, however, a bill pending in Congress that would force the Labor Department to act.

In 2009, the average home care worker wage was $9.34 an hour. The average annual wage would thus have been $20,283, assuming full-time, year-round work and no overtime. Barely enough to lift a family of three above the federal poverty line.

But PHI, which advocates for long-term care workers, tells us that a large percentage work only part-time or for part of the year. Average annual earnings were thus $16,800.

As a result, 46% are poor enough to qualify for benefits like food stamps and Medicaid. Sadly ironic when so many of them indirectly get their wages from Medicaid.

Needless to say, morale is low and turnover high — an estimated 50%-80% a year.

Clients who need stability have to continually adjust to new caregivers — and new caregivers to them.

Employers incur ongoing recruitment and training costs. A vicious cycle here since the more they spend due to turnover, the less they’re ready to invest in turnover-reducing wages.

And, of course, some of the best potential candidates look elsewhere from the get-go.

Still, that average hourly wage is more than the minimum the FLSA requires. And the fixes NELP recommends wouldn’t compel states with higher minimums to cover home care workers.

So what would a more appropriate federal rule achieve? Some important things, I think.

First and foremost, it would entitle all home care workers to the same base-level hourly rates as the vast majority of other workers in the country. This would mean, among other things, that they’d be paid for time spent traveling from one client to the next — and, of course, time-and-a-half for extra long hours.

It would also formally recognize home care work as a genuine paraprofessional occupation — one that entails far more than providing some “companionship” to elderly and disabled people.

These two changes would help ensure a sufficient supply of well-trained, experienced home care workers — the sort we’d want for ourselves and our family members.

Emphasis here on “help” because the FLSA rule change is, as logicians say, necessary but not sufficient. It would, however, rectify what seems a clear case of economic injustice.

There are currently about 1.7 million home care workers in the country. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 2.5 million by 2018. That’s an awful lot of hard-working people to leave at risk of poverty.

If you agree, you’ve got a chance to weigh in right now.

The Department of Labor is holding two call-in “listening sessions” on the home care exemption. They’re scheduled for Monday, July 25 and Wednesday, July 27, both 4:00-5:00 EST. Call-in number and passcode here.

* Home care workers belong to one of two occupational categories in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ classification system — home health aides and personal care aides. This issue brief from PHI details duties and distinctions.