There is no question that costs are going up across the board, and Gov. Kathy Hochul has made affordability the centerpiece to her agenda for the coming year. Yet the budget she proposed last month includes only a 1.7% cost-of-living adjustment for workers in the human services sector — workers who provide critical care to high-needs New Yorkers.
While any allocation to this sector is appreciated and important, that is more than a full percentage point lower than the 2.8% increase being applied to Social Security payments this year. The governor’s inadequate proposed increase for human services workers is happening as care providers in this sector are facing critical staffing needs and must urgently attract new employees to the field. The adjustment for rising living costs needs to be higher so we can at least begin to contend with this dire situation.
Many workers in this sector, who care for some of our most vulnerable and in-need populations, struggle to maintain a livelihood for themselves and their families, with these burdens falling most heavily on women and men of color. And of course these gaps breed turnover and staffing shortages, creating a crisis for care providers, employees and human service recipients alike.
Per a survey of major human services organizations in New York City, the sector’s staffing shortages have gotten significantly worse since before the pandemic. The social assistance sector overall had 17,402 open jobs from January to December 2023, a 20.3% jump from 2019 (14,466 postings), and an alarmingly high turnover rate of 58%. One hundred percent of organizations surveyed said wages were the main driver of staff vacancies and turnover.
The significant gaps between staffing and care needs lead to burnout of remaining team members, service gaps, a lack in crisis care and increased organization costs for new staff training and recruitment efforts to refill positions. In an industry where funding is already sparse, these additional costs can be backbreakers for service providers.
As the budget advances through negotiations, the governor’s team and members of the Legislature should look to Senate Bill S1580A for guidance on how to proceed. The bill would establish a 2.7% human services cost-of-living adjustment for all human services programs, and would rightly include these adjustments to programs and agencies like independent living centers for people with developmental disabilities, addiction treatment centers and workers in the state’s supportive-housing programs, among others who have been previously left out of cost-of-living increases.
An adjustment of only 1.7% will continue to make it exceedingly difficult for human services provider organizations, including ours, to hire and retain staff in a manner adequate for upholding our standards of care just as the demands for human services are increasing regularly. In New York, the sector has nearly doubled since 2000, employing almost a million people as of 2023. As a result, one out of every nine private-sector employees (a category that includes nonprofit staff) works in human services.
And although the sector is the fastest growing, it is still one of the most grossly underpaid, according to a study by the CUNY Institute for State and Local Governance. Since 2000, human services workers have seen their wages rise 3% on average, compared with a 12% increase in private employment overall. While agencies and organizations who employ these workers do what they can to pay them sufficiently, they are often at the whim of state and federal funding to make that happen.
Millions of New Yorkers rely on human services support in varying capacities. New York state must do more to ensure that the people who provide that support are able to support their families and live comfortably. We need these professionals — without them, the needs of the community will go unmet.
Increasing to a 2.7% cost-of-living adjustment for this sector would be the bare minimum. It would improve the lives of countless New Yorkers, whether they work in human services or depend on their programs to lead a better life.Sherry Tucker is the CEO of WellLife Network, a nonprofit human services provider.