Throughout 2019, GAO and New Jersey home care clients, employees, and industry partners battled the state government on the state’s minimum wage increase. BAYADA has been a staunch supporter of an increased minimum wage, as home health aides’ roles are vital to the community and require compassionate, excellent, and reliable workers. However, GAO and other advocates worked to show legislators and stakeholders why a Personal Care Assistant (PCA) Increase was necessary for providers to be able to continue to recruit and retain these valuable workers.

Advocates’ efforts resulted in a much-needed $2 per hour increase to the PCA rate—but the battle wasn’t quite finished yet. The legislature had also included language that would require 100% of the increase to be passed through directly to aides’ wages. While such a mandate was admirable in spirit, in practice it would have the potential to crush the state’s home care industry as a whole. After additional advocacy from GAO, staff, and industry partners, this pass through was successfully eliminated in December 2019.

In 2020, one of GAO’s primary goals in New Jersey is to continue to battle for further increases to the state’s PCA rate so that BAYADA can continue to pay wages to recruit and retain quality aides as the state’s mandatory minimum wage continues to increase.