CNN Money has an article out on the "fastest growing job" - rest of headline "it pays poorly", anyone surprised?
The article here has the opening two lines:
The fastest growing job in America pays poorly. Meet home health care aides.
Guess what else? The working group is characterized by employing "mostly women and minorities".
But there are things that need to be changed - and need support to get them done.
First:
Many home health care aides are exempt from federal minimum wage and overtime laws, due to a little-known provision in the Fair Labor Standards Act passed in 1974, which puts them in the same category as casual babysitters. The Obama administration has been trying to change that over the past two years, but its efforts have been met fiercely with lobbying from the industry.
Second:
But even though there are plenty of job opportunities, many of these people make the same wage as teenagers flipping burgers or selling clothes at the mall. The average hourly wage is just $9.70 an hour, according to the Labor Department.
Under these conditions, it's no surprise then that about 40% of home aides rely on public assistance, such as Medicaid and food stamps, just to get by.
FYI - the projection for this job growth is 1.3 million new jobs in this area in the next 10 years - 130,000 jobs per year. Avrage job growth in 2012 was 150,000 jobs per month. Therefore, it is possible that nearly 10% of all new job for the next decade may be these home health care jobs paying less than $20,000 per year. That won't pay off college loans.