WASHINGTON, D.C –U.S. Senator Angus King has introduced legislation to revitalize the American long-term care workforce by making jobs more attractive and better compensated. The Long-Term Care Workforce Support Act would ensure that caregiving can be a sustainable, lifelong career by providing substantial new funding to support workers in nursing homes, home-care, and assisted living facilities – including in rural areas. By improving caregiver compensation, benefits, and support systems, the bill would ensure that communities across the nation have a strong, qualified long-term care workforce to provide desperately needed care for older adults and people with disabilities.

Millions of families with aging loved ones and people with disabilities require skilled care to live, but many caregivers today work long hours for low pay, resulting in some workers being forced to leave their field for higher paying jobs. This instability has resulted in widespread worker shortages for those in need of essential care.

“Maine seniors already face many challenges accessing affordable, quality healthcare because of both the availability of healthcare workers and, particularly for rural Maine seniors, their distance to medical facilities,” said Senator King. “The Long-Term Care Workforce Support Act would work to improve the pipeline of strong, qualified healthcare workers to meet the ever-evolving needs of our older family members and people with disabilities. We are at a critical junction, but taking steps like this will provide the infrastructure for better healthcare in the years to come.”

Caregiving is in crisis across the United States. Caregivers are widely underpaid, earning a median wage of $15.43 an hour and often living in poverty. The result is caregivers are in short supply—a recent survey revealed 92% of nursing home respondents and nearly 70% of assisted living facilities reported significant or severe workforce shortages. Another recent survey of home and community-based services (HCBS) providers showed all 50 states experiencing home care worker shortages, and 43 states reported that some HCBS providers have closed due to worker shortages. (Maine has seen 23 nursing home closures in the last ten years.)

The Long Term Care Workforce Support Act will address this crisis by stabilizing, growing, and supporting the direct care professional workforce. Specifically, the Long-Term Care Workforce Support Act will:

• Increase the number of direct care professionals, including in rural communities;
• Provide pathways to enter and be supported in the workforce for women, people of color, and people with disabilities;
• Improve compensation for direct care professionals to reduce vacancies and turnover;
• Ensure that direct care professionals are treated with respect, provided with a safe working environment, protected from exploitation, and provided fair compensation;
• Improve access and quality of long-term care for families;
• Document the need for long-term care, identify effective recruitment and training strategies, and promote practices that help retain direct care professionals.
• Strengthen the direct care professional workforce in order to support the 53,000,000 unpaid family caregivers who are providing complex services to their loved ones in the home and across long-term care settings.

Senator King is a longstanding advocate for the necessity of stable, quality long term care in Maine. Earlier this year, he introduced bipartisan legislation that would require the VA to study the risks to elderly veterans of a proposed rule by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that would unsustainably change staffing ratios at nursing homes, especially in rural areas. In an October 2023 letter to the head administrator of CMS, King noted that proposed staffing mandates may inadvertently cause the widespread shutdown of rural nursing facilities, both in Maine and across the country.

In addition to King, the bill is cosponsored by U.S. Senators Bob Casey (D-PA), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), John Fetterman (D-PA), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Peter Welch (D-VT), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Tina Smith (D-MN), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Patty Murray (D-WA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Laphonza Butler (D-CA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), and Ed Markey (D-MA).

Read more about the Long-Term Care Workforce Support Act here.

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