Alliance Note: Advocates continue to call for an increased cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) to support the human services workforce, including those who offer services to people with mental health, substance use, and trauma related challenges. The state must provide at least a 3.2% COLA to keep pace with inflation and help our community agencies, which are critical to the state’s care system, recruit and retain the staff who dedicate their days to supporting others.
The Alliance has made securing the 3.2% COLA our top priority for the year. Last week we held a press conference as well as a rally in Albany to push the legislature and Governor to include this in the final budget. We must continue our efforts to save our workforce and services as negotiations over the budget heat up. Continue to monitor this Enews for more budget updates as well as ways you can support efforts for the COLA and needed services as we get closer to the budget deadline. See below for information on a recent COLA rally.
Advocates Push for Cost-of-Living Adjustment Increase for N.Y. Human Services Workers, Including Some Nonprofit Employees
By Jack Arpey | Spectrum News 1 | March 11, 2023
Pushing for a cost-of-living adjustment for human services workers was the subject of a rally at the New York state Capitol on Monday.
Not only that, but also at hand was the urge to form a panel that would ensure wages not be allowed to slump to levels that have brought groups out multiple times already this session.
Michelle Jackson, executive director of the Human Services Council, said human services workers touch all aspects of life in New York.
“From running senior centers, to daycare to after-school programs, mental health services, developmental disabilities, people experiencing homelessness, there’s over 800,000 of these workers across the state,” she said.
Jackson said though that low wages make it increasingly difficult for those in the field, telling Spectrum News 1 that until just a few years ago, there hadn’t been a cost-of-living adjustment in 15 years.
That’s more than a decade of potential gains that these workers won’t see.
“We would have seen probably $10-15,000 more in the pockets of human services workers,” she said.
What they are rallying for is a 3.2% increase to keep up with inflation for workers who, in many cases, actually work for nonprofits that contract with the state, meaning their executive directors’ hands are tied by what the state will pay for wages.
“They really set and pay the salaries of human services workers at nonprofits, so if they’re not doing COLAs [cost-of-living adjustments] and also these contracts can last for 10 years or more, they are starting contracts where they think, for example, a social worker should make $40,000 a year in New York,” she said. “That’s a master’s level education.”
A COLA increase is a top priority of state Assemblymember Harry Bronson, chair of the Assembly Labor Committee.
“We need to increase it so they don’t have to work second jobs and third jobs so they can provide for their families,” he said.
That said, Jackson emphasized that while a step in the right direction, upping wages by COLA is not the end goal.
Instead, she said a wage board must be established to regulate pay.
“COLA helps, but it doesn’t get people the equitable wages that we need, so we really need the state agencies to work with us and that’s what a wage board would do. We could ask why are wages so low and how can we stop it from happening again through policy or legislation,” she said.
Assembly Republicans indicated Monday that they also are supportive of the effort.
Advocates push for Human Services COLA increase (spectrumlocalnews.com)