CARING ABOUT CAREGIVERS

HIGH TECHNOLOGY aside, machines can't replace the "human" in
human-service work. Real people are needed to staff group homes, help
people beat drug habits, care for the mentally ill, educate children,
and protect the elderly and disabled. A new report says the state
will soon need far more human service workers than it has. But with
their low pay and lower profile, these workers get little attention.

Such anonymity undersells the human-service industry's role in the
state's economic health.

"We haven't told anyone that we have 100,000 employees in this
state," says David Jordan, president of the Seven Hills Foundation, a
Worcester agency.

The exact number in 2003 was 98,129 workers statewide, caring for
children, the elderly, and people with disabilities. These workers
earned more than $2 billion in 2003, generating an estimated $112
million in state and local taxes.

That's the good economic news. The troubling news is that this
workforce has to grow, but the state's population is stagnant. By
2014, there will be a need for a total of 135,000 human-service jobs,
according to a recent report by the Massachusetts Council of Human
Service Providers and the Donahue Institute, part of the president's
office at the University of Massachusetts.

The demand for home-care aides is expected to jump substantially as
the population ages and fewer elders opt for nursing homes. But
slow-growing Massachusetts won't have enough people to fill these
positions. It's a looming labor crisis that should be addressed now,
says Jordan.

Some solutions are clear. Human-service workers need higher salaries.
Their median annual earnings of $23,833 in 1999 were about $9,000
less than peers in healthcare, according to the report. The state
can't afford to close that entire gap. But $44 million could provide
5 percent raises for workers earning less than $40,000 a year,
according to the council.

The state also needs a predictable, legal flow of immigrants, who do
the work of caring for some of the most vulnerable residents.

Workers need more access to higher education, through expanded
financial aid and courses offered at work. Earning degrees increases
workers' skills and career mobility.

The state also needs more affordable housing. Otherwise Massachusetts
will increasingly become a great place to visit, but one that's too
costly to call home.

Massachusetts should sell itself to each year's crop of college
graduates and to human-service workers in other states. Substantial
investments in human capital should help meet increasing human needs.