“If you can’t make a career and a living wage out of caregiving in the same way that you can with other fields, you can only hold on for so long.”

Andrea Loveday-Brown has been working and living in Sonoma County for over 10 years. She is one of the over 6,000 In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) providers in Sonoma, caring for older adults and people with disabilities. Currently caring for her 11-year-old daughter with intellectual, developmental, and physical disabilities, she has seen her work as a parent provider be undervalued and misunderstood — if it’s recognized at all.

That’s why Andrea rallied with fellow home care workers and allies in front of the Sonoma County Administration building, imploring the Board of Supervisors to understand the true value of their work.

“It’s interesting to be a parent caregiver because we understand intimately how difficult the job is, how exhausting and how highly skilled it is,” she said during a conversation, speaking over the shouts and cheers of providers at the rally.

Care providers must be adaptable and flexible to their consumer’s needs. In Andrea’s case, her daughter has limited mobility and is nonspeaking, requiring intensive care on a daily basis.

In Sonoma County, workers only make $17.35 whereas the living wage is $27.15 according to MIT’s living wage calculator — and that’s for a single adult without children. This means that many providers struggle to afford rent and pay basic bills.

Prior to caring for her daughter, Andrea spent 15 years directing after school programs. She is now doing consulting and advocacy related to disability justice. Her own experience helped her realize there has always been a big gap in care for people with disabilities in after school programs.

When she became a provider for her daughter, she saw how people didn’t see caring for people with disabilities as a real career. Workers are left unacknowledged for their efforts in providing essential services to recipients and helping them live their fullest lives in their own homes, not institutional care.

“Providers need to be able to relate to and work well with the family. Working in someone’s home is not the easiest, and it’s not for everybody. Resourcefulness is also a major skill, especially when the pay is so low,” said Andrea.

“It just all goes back to free labor. What counties are ultimately doing is counting on the free labor of people that are going to do the work because the care doesn’t stop. Families don’t have a choice to not provide care or to not find a care worker. We’ve heard people talk about how they just sleep four hours a night, so those are the sacrifices that families are making,” said Andrea.

In other professions, there is paid “sick leave” but as a parent caregiver, Andrea isn’t given that same benefit of calling in sick. The care never stops. Moreover, the lack of healthcare benefits for providers can be detrimental to their safety.

“Caregiving can be a very physical job. I’m doing transfers of my daughter to and from her wheelchair, to and from her bed. I’ve had multiple injuries from lifting. Your ability to work is dependent on your ability to keep yourself safe,” Andrea explains.

Although Andrea is fortunate enough to have healthcare through her husband’s job, she can only imagine how other care workers survive, given the often-overlooked physical demands of the job.

Andrea points out that it’s no coincidence home care workers are expected to provide free labor. Ideas about home care are shaped by the history of Black and enslaved women doing this type of work without the pay or labor protections afforded other workers. In California, in-home care workers are 80% women, 74% people of color, and 47% immigrants.

“Offering such a small amount of money for such an essential job, it’s disrespectful. It’s further marginalizing folks that are already having a hard time surviving.”

Because of the low wages, providers often don’t stay in the industry. In 2023, more than 1,000,000 authorized care hours went unused in Sonoma County (source), meaning the County was unable to find caregivers to work over 9% of the care hours that seniors and people with disabilities needed.

“They leave because ultimately if you can’t make a career and a living wage out of caregiving in the same way that you can with other fields, you can only hold on for so long.”

As the number of older adults increases, so does the demand for care. In Sonoma County alone, more than a million authorized care hours went unused, indicating a lack of caregivers — not to mention care needs going unmet. The population of adults 60 and older in the county is expected to increase by 145% from 2010 to 2060 (source). There has been a nearly 4% increase in the caseload for IHSS providers as the number of recipients continues to increase.

With higher wages, the County will be better able to retain and maintain care workers, like Andrea, providing essential services.

Sonoma County providers are still bargaining for a stronger contract with higher wages. Andrea wants the Board of Supervisors to know that “if you care about women, if you care about disabled people, if you care about Black and brown folks, if you care about seniors and marginalized people at all, you will not move forward without approving a raise. Please think about if you were personally affected by this, would $17.35 an hour be sufficient?”

Click here to learn more about the providers in Sonoma County.