AUSTIN — For 40 hours a week, Angela Blankenship takes care of Rick Frame, who has been paralyzed from the neck down since a 1999 motorcycle accident.
She helps him eat, bathe and move, allowing the former tool designer to stay in his Arlington home.
“I’m able to live my life my own way,” said Frame, 59. “I’ve heard nothing but horror stories about people that live in nursing homes.”
For the intensive labor required, Blankenship is paid $9.75 an hour from Texas Medicaid funds Frame receives for his care. Other personal care attendants make as little as $8.11 an hour — the program’s base wage.
“There’s never been any money in caregiving, but I love the work,” said Blankenship, 51. “It’s incredibly rewarding.”
Frame is lucky to have an attendant. More Texans than live in Plano are experiencing a home-care labor shortage induced by low wages that could force them to surrender their independence and go into nursing homes or other institutions.
The low wages have created “100% turnover” and forced many attendants to sign up for public assistance programs such as food stamps, Medicaid and subsidized housing, said Rachel Hammon, head of the state’s home health agency trade group.
The Legislature, flush with cash, has the power to relieve the crisis.
So far this session, both chambers’ budget writers haven’t gone even halfway toward raising the $8.11-an-hour floor for “community care attendants” to a level remotely competitive with fast-food chains, which can pay up to $20 an...
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