Orange County IHSS Workers Urging a Wage Increase

Home care workers in Orange County, California, who provide care through the state’s In-Home Supportive Services Program (IHSS), are asking county lawmakers to raise their wages to $10.75 an hour, Voice of OC reported on August 4.

IHSS workers and their union representatives from the United Domestic Workers of America (UDWA) have attended meetings of the five-member county board of supervisors in recent months, urging supervisors to vote for a wage increase.

Orange County IHSS workers currently earn $9.30 an hour, the Voice of OC reported. A raise in California’s minimum wage will boost their hourly wage to $10 on January 1, but IHSS workers say they should be earning more than that.

IHSS caregivers should make “enough above minimum wage for people to feel like they’re valued, because there’s definitely dignity in the work that they do, there’s definitely respect in the work that they do,” Dante Harrison, a UDWA regional coordinator, told the Voice of OC.

In June, the Los Angeles County board of supervisors voted to approve a wage increase for IHSS workers there, from $9.65 an hour to $11.18 an hour by February 2017.

— by Matthew Ozga