Rally for Just Pay for NYC Human Services Workers at City Hall

We are so proud to have had The Door staffers join the thousands of other allies at City Hall on Thursday, May 25, to rally for just pay for human service workers serving our New York City communities, as part of the Human Services Council of New York's #DayWithoutHumanServices rally. We made our voices heard by advocating for a COLA (cost-of-living adjustment) for human services workers in the New York City budget, demanding just pay and an end to government-sanctioned poverty wages for crucial work!

More About the Demand for Just Pay for NYC Human Services Workers

Historically, New York City has paid human services workers poverty wages. For example, nearly 25% of all human services workers qualified for food stamps between 2016 and 2018.

The majority of those staffing the human services workforce are people of color and women, so the low wages also contribute to keeping those groups systemically impoverished.

The absence of a livable wage in human services sector jobs has led to a staff shortage in these important areas—people leaving the field, high turnover rates, and positions remaining vacant.

As a result, human services as a field is chronically short-staffed with unsustainable case-and workloads, making it a barrier for community services who need these services as well as a diminished quality in the services being received.

Human services contracts are chronically underfunded. So the agencies that offer these vital programs toggle between choosing to accept contracts that don’t pay fair, livable wages and don’t offer sufficient dollars for services and walking away from those contracts, laying off those human service workers, and either cutting back on or closing crucial community programs.

As of this writing, the New York City Executive Budget currently does not include a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for human services workers, and the final version needs to include one.