AgdaPkt 2017-09-25 Closed and Joint SA PFA

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The Effects of a $15 Minimum Wage by 2019 in Santa Clara County and San Jose 50 to work for people who otherwise would not be employable due to their lower productivity. Maryland abolished the subminimum wage for people with disabilities earlier this year (Marans 2016). Nonprofit organizations Nonprofits comprise a wide range of organizations. Some are large institutions (universities, hospitals, large services providers) that have sizeable annual budgets with varied funding streams and that are therefore able to absorb minimum wage increases. Such institutions account for a significant portion of the nonprofit sector. At the same time, other nonprofits may face real constraints on their ability to adjust to minimum wage. These are typically smaller nonprofits dependent on a few public funding streams that are fixed over the short or even medium term, and over which they have little leverage. A local minimum wage policy offers an opportunity to address the problem of low-wage work in certain nonprofit service-providing sectors—a problem that impacts the well-being of both workers and program clients through the quality of care provided. Raising wages in human services and early care and education has benefits for clients as well as workers. There is a well-documented link between quality jobs, worker turnover and quality care in human services and early care and education. Larson et al. (2004) found that, in the field of developmental disability services, high vacancies are associated with lower consumer and family satisfaction. Furthermore, families reported increased stress, greater financial challenges, and more job losses due to reduction in services that were at least in part connected to high turnover and vacancies. Wage increases have been shown to reduce turnover and vacancies. For example, after Wyoming legislation increased wages for developmental disability industry workers, turnover rates fell from 52 percent to 32 percent in just two years (Harmuth and Dyson 2005). Similarly, turnover decreased 17 percent among home care workers in San Francisco after an increase in wages (Howes 2002). Other studies have directly linked wages and quality care. The National Childcare Staffing Study (Whitebook, Howes, and Phillips 1989) found that staff wages provided the strongest predictor of child care quality. Observations in child care centers in Wisconsin revealed an increase in the quality of care after a wage increase (Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS) 2002). Child care quality in turn has long-term impacts on children’s learning, health and development (Whitebook, Howes, and Phillips 2014). Larson et al.’s 2004 study similarly found a link between lower wages in developmental disabilities services and lower quality of life assessments for consumers (Larson et al. 2004). A higher minimum wage would help to reduce turnover in lower paid occupations within the nonprofit sector and improve quality outcomes for consumers. Exempting groups of nonprofit organizations from a minimum wage increase, conversely, could have negative effects on the quality of care by increasing employee turnover. If certain nonprofits pay lower wages than the 8.A. - Page 64