Prior to the pandemic, Henry Ford had already decided to increase its minimum wage to $15 in 2020; it has been incrementally raising it for years. The move affected many who deal directly with patients, including nurse assistants, health screeners and food service assistants, among others.
“This was in our plan for this year anyway, but this was just that extra added impetus for us to make these changes sooner rather than later,” Ramsey said.
COVID-19 also showed the importance of addressing the social determinants of health, as those who are poorer with less access to care and resources have been hit hardest by the pandemic, leaders said. Nationally, the median pay per hour for those in healthcare support, service and direct care jobs was $13.48 in 2019, according to the Brookings Institution.
“There is a strong association between financial health and security and overall health, a reality that has been driven home over the last eight months for our team members who are on the front lines of the fight against COVID-19,” Henry Ford CEO Wright Lassiter III said in October when the raises were announced.
For Douglas, Henry Ford’s raise meant making $3.55 more per hour. As a result, he will be able to afford a place of his own sooner and won’t need to work two jobs for as long. “When this opportunity happened, it was a blessing,” Douglas said.
The risk remains for front-line workers across the country. Estimates of the number of healthcare workers who have died from COVID-19 range from 800, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to close to 1,400 by Kaiser Health News and the Guardian.
“Like the higher-paid doctors and nurses they work alongside, these essential workers are risking their lives during the pandemic—but with far less prestige and recognition, very low pay and less access to the protective equipment that could save their lives,” Molly Kinder, a fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, said in a recent report. “The vast majority of these workers are women, and they are disproportionately people of color.”
In 2019, the healthcare support, service and direct care workforce, which includes pharmacy aides, nursing assistants and housekeepers, among others, was 81% women, 25% Black, and 21% Latino or Hispanic, according to Brookings.
Thomas Campanella, healthcare executive in residence at Baldwin Wallace University, said that hospitals have a greater responsibility from a healthcare standpoint to address financial factors that affect overall health and create barriers to care, especially for its lowest-paid and minority workers.
“There has been a sense that hospitals can do more to reach out to the community outside the walls of the hospitals, which is true. But this is also a way within the walls of the hospital to address needs in the population,” Campanella said.