To Stimulate the Economy, Add More Home Care Jobs

Last week I wrote about how cuts to home care programs in a number of states will hurt people like my own grandparents. Chances are, if your grandparents (or your parents, if you're a generation or two older than I am) didn't make bank when they were younger, they rely in some capacity on federally-funded assistance to make ends meet. But isn't there a way to reverse this impending harm? What if that way even created new jobs to boost the economy?

As economist Nancy Folbre writes on the New York Times' Economix blog, increasing federal spending for home care programs would not only benefit people who truly need assistance; it would create job growth. Talk about a win-win solution. Two recent proposals that explain why this would be a mutually beneficial economic move for the federal government also include increased funding for early education and child care in their analysis. After all, as Folbre writes and as many of us already know, programs like Head Start and Medicaid exist because we don't believe the poor should have to fend for themselves. Poverty isn't something for which people should be further punished.

The authors of the two studies Folbre highlights (which you can read here and here) explain, in their respective ways, that investing in these specific types of jobs would provide more jobs per amount invested in job growth than in other types of industries or fields.

Researchers from the New America Foundation explain that a voucher system for elder care services, based on successful models from several European countries, would provide additional ways that seniors can continue to afford to live at home with subsidized assistance. The other report looks at the possibility of a second stimulus package — admittedly less exciting to people disenchanted with the first one — to funnel funds into providing more jobs in home-based care.

Both studies have their drawbacks, particularly the New America Foundation report, which excludes cuts to child care, early education and care for people with disabilities, even though, as I previously wrote, they're being hit equally hard by budget cuts to home aid.

Still, both studies offer advice on how to kick-start certain parts of the job market again while providing essential services to folks who need them. I'm not entirely thrilled with either proposal, but as always, I'm happy to see some progress and a step in the right direction when it comes to theorizing how to help the poor. But, right now, the thing we most need is action.

Photo credit: sicamp