EditorFollowing a gubernatorial pay hike foisted on New York’s fast food industry, a potential exodus of health care workers to the fast food industry has some New York leaders concerned.
via Albany’s Times Union.
Will entry-level health care workers be trading in their bedpans for burger trays?
The issue of a $15 an hour mandate for fast food workers emerged Thursday during a legislative health care hearing. Nursing homes and home care agencies are concerned they will lose employees to better-paying fast food jobs.
The solution, however, may not be as simple as merely raising health care workers’ wages to compete against the fast-food industry.
Opponents of a higher overall minimum wage, however, note that unlike fast food, health care is largely taxpayer-funded through the Medicaid and Medicare systems, which insures the poor and the elderly, respectively.
“You are going to have a taxpayer impact” if wages for health care workers increase, said Mike Durant, state director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses.
“Unlike McDonald’s, we can’t raise the price of hamburgers,” said Richard Herrick, president of the state Health Facilities Association, which represents nursing homes and assisted living centers.
He agreed that higher health care worker costs would likely be passed along to government programs such as Medicaid.
As New York already has some of the highest taxes in the nation, one must wonder if increasing taxes further to boost wages mandated by government fiat will result in a taxpayer backlash.
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