Home care workers in Nevada plan to call for a $20 per hour minimum wage in the upcoming legislative session after a successful effort set the industry’s first minimum wage through the state’s budgeting process two years ago.
A recent study by the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services found industry-wide improvements in recruitment and retention of home care workers following an effort during the 2023 session to set a $16 hourly minimum wage and increase Medicaid funding for the industry.
As the 2025 session prepares to begin Monday, a coalition of personal aides for seniors and people with disabilities say they plan to use the study results in a new effort to increase the minimum wage and funding during the next biennium’s budgeting process. They’re seeking a change to the provision that would make the minimum wage $20 per hour and tie it to an increase in the reimbursable rate paid to the agencies that employ the home care workers.
Rozetta Love, a home care worker in Southern Nevada, said the push from her peers comes at a time when the state is seeing an aging population. Nevada is expected to need 5,300 additional home care workers by 2026, according to a 2020 Guinn Center report.
“I see our people, they’re getting older and older,” Love said. “I’m older, too. How many more years am I going to be doing this? We need to train up our young (personal care assistants). We need to let them know that they are worth ($20 an hour) to do this job.”
The DHHS study found that between December 2023 and April 2024, the number of home care workers rose by about 1,500, a 6.5 percent increase. It also found that 96 percent of home care workers retained their job during that period.
2023 change’s impact swift
In 2023, home care workers — some of whom joined SEIU Local 1107 in a recent wave of union elections — lobbied state officials to increase funding in the state budget for their industry and create a provision that sets a minimum wage.
The budget changes increased the reimbursement rate, or funding that home care employers receive through Medicaid and other governmental programs, from roughly $17 an hour to $25 an hour. It also required that at least $16 of the $25 hourly rate be paid as hourly wage to the direct care workers.
The effect was quickly felt, according to some home care workers. Love said she’s been taking care of her client, a veteran in his early 70s, for 15 years. She spends four hours every day, seven days a week, with him — grooming him, helping with household chores, ensuring he took his medications, making him meals and otherwise helping make his home comfortable — and used to make $10.49 per hour.
But since the wage increase went into effect in 2024, she’s been able to save more and replace her 24-year-old car.
“Now I can live without struggling from paycheck to paycheck,” she said. “If you don’t have a happy home care worker, you can make your client miserable too, because they know things are not right.”
Love said she hopes lawmakers will be receptive to the changes because they had bipartisan support in the last session. She said many lawmakers were familiar with what home care workers are but were shocked at the pay rates.
“A lot of them were bewildered about my pay and all the things I had to do,” she said. “They would ask why I’m still doing it. Because this is my passion. This is what I’m supposed to do. I’ve been in a lot of fields, and I was not content. I’m very content on taking care of those that cannot take care of themselves.”
Contact McKenna Ross at mross@reviewjournal.com. Follow @mckenna_ross_ on X.
