Posts

Torres-Gil on Fixing the Caregiver Shortage

/0 Comments/in /by

A Next Avenue series on individuals who are breaking new ground on issues surrounding aging highlighted the work of Fernando Torres-Gil, professor emeritus of social welfare and public policy at UCLA Luskin. Torres-Gil has has served as a senior advisor on aging to three U.S. presidents and has a long record of scholarship and advocacy in the field. He spoke of the urgent need for caregivers for older or disabled Americans, saying that the current workforce is underpaid and undervalued. “Young caregivers now will not work for $12 an hour to take care of a disabled person, not when they can go to In-N-Out and get $18, $19, almost $20 an hour and be better treated, have health insurance and have a job that doesn’t wear them down physically,” Torres-Gil said. He also weighed in on the 2024 election, expressing fears that political campaigns will reduce aging issues to “mudslinging, distortions and lies, no substantive discussion.”

Read the article

 

Torres-Gil on Plight of California’s Caregivers

/0 Comments/in /by

Fernando Torres-Gil, director of UCLA Luskin’s Center for Policy Research on Aging and professor emeritus of social welfare and public policy, commented in a CalMatters article on low wages and lack of benefits and safe working conditions for California’s caregivers. Experts say the need for caregivers is only increasing in the state and across the country. “We don’t, as a society, value or honor persons that do caregiving,” Torres-Gil said, explaining that one reason the field is undervalued is that caregivers are predominantly immigrant women. In the coming decade, with nearly one-fifth of the population age 65 and older, California will face a shortage of more than 3 million caregivers, according to the California Department of Aging. Torres-Gil said that caregivers working in homes or nursing centers earn minimum, or near minimum, pay and lack benefits of regular 9-to-5 jobs, making long-term care as a career “a hard sell for young people.”

Read the article