This study looks at the impacts of the direct care worker shortage in the U.S. and offers recommendations to grow and support this workforce, comprised disproportionately of immigrants (25%), people of color (68%) and women (86%). Beyond the paid workforce, unpaid family and friend caregivers are estimated at 38 million. Worker shortages strain the healthcare system, harming access to and quality of care for millions of adults and children in the U.S. and contributing to increased federal and state spending. With 5.1 million direct care workers in 2022, Health and Human Services estimates that the supply of direct care workers will fall short of the demand associated with 8.9 million projected job openings from 2022-2032. Through research, interviews with stakeholders and federal policy experts, and a private roundtable discussion, the authors identified three broad sets of bipartisan legislative and administrative federal policy solutions to address the challenges to recruiting and retaining direct care workers. These include (1) promote retention of direct care workers through reforms that encourage more supportive work environments, including assisting unpaid caregivers (2) increase the number of workers through domestic and targeted immigration policy reforms, including expanded apprenticeship programs, increased permanent and temporary employment-based visas, and legalization of qualifying unauthorized workers; and (3) improve standardized data collection and publicly available data on the direct care workforce to measure the effects of these efforts and inform evidence-based policymaking. (Jeffrey Gross, Ph.D.)
Addressing the Direct Care Workforce Shortage: A Bipartisan Call to Action,
Bipartisan Policy Center, December 2023, 94 pp.
Authors: Lisa Harootunian et al