The Care Workforce Shortage Is Getting Worse, and Policy Is Making It Worse Faster

Care work in the United States has operated on a broken premise for decades: that people will keep doing essential, physically demanding, emotionally difficult work for wages that do not support a household. A recent American Prospect piece argues that the resulting shortage across every category of care work is now being compounded by federal action on immigration.

Efforts to terminate Temporary Protected Status are removing workers who staff nursing homes, hospice programs, and independent living services for veterans with disabilities. These are people caring for aging parents and grandparents, supporting families through end of life, and helping people live independently, and they have been doing it for inadequate pay.

The consequences land on the people least able to absorb them. When a nursing home cannot fill shifts, residents wait longer for help. When home care agencies lose staff, families take on the work themselves, often by leaving jobs.

Organizations working in aging, disability, health care, and workforce development should be tracking how TPS terminations affect their local labor pool, and should be prepared to speak to what that means in concrete terms.