WORKFORCE CRISIS
pass and become law. Overall, what we’re looking for is additional relief for our mem- bers—financial relief and help with the workforce shortage crisis. There are other avenues where we’re
fighting for additional relief. One of those is The Safeguarding Elderly Needs for Infrastructure and Occupational Resources (SENIOR) Act. This legislation would provide a fund that creates financial relief for assisted living caregivers who suffered COVID-related losses and haven’t been justly compensated. It also is a tremendous investment in the workforce shortages and the long-term care spectrum as a whole, but specifically targeting some of the workforce shortage needs for assisted living.
Q. What are the basics of the need for caregivers and senior living workforce ahead—and what is the gap between what’s needed and what we may have? A. The challenges are tremendous. They were tremendous before COVID, and that certainly has exacerbated the problem. Other industries across the nation are expe- riencing a workforce shortage crisis—from service industries to manufacturing entities. But of course, it becomes critically impor- tant when you’re talking about making sure older adults have the care they need. That’s why it’s been incredibly challenging
for so many of our members. Workforce costs as a result of the labor shortages has added to their financial burden to the point of crisis. As we look at the demographics of our nation, where we have such a rapidly aging
population, we can see that for the first time in our country’s history, in the year 2034, we’re actually going to have more seniors than we will children. We don’t have the workforce we need to care for those individuals in the future. And we need to address it now.
Q. What policies might help the United States fill this gap? A. A lot of folks talk about ways to work with community colleges and even at a younger age in junior high and high school, and there are special programs funded by the federal government to really target certain populations to help them become caregiv- ers. All of these are fantastic and wonderful ideas, but they take a while. It takes years to fully develop those concepts, and we need short-term solutions as well. What we really want to focus on is as
Argentum moves into 2022—and as we host our Public Policy Institute in March—is establishing those strategies of long-term and short-term solutions in the workforce crisis and in long-term care financing. In the Affordable Care Act, a commission
was created to focus on workforce shortages in the healthcare arena. They prioritize underserved areas and rural areas, and for good reason, because there have certainly been healthcare shortages there. But looking at the numbers, there is no
greater healthcare workforce crisis than that affecting the aging population. That’s where we can engage with the federal government, with this administration—working on actionable items needed at this moment.
There are a lot of wonderful federal job
training programs that collaborate on a state-by-state basis to help meet shortage needs: Job Corps, Area Health Education Centers, National Health Service Corps. These all involve training or loan forgiveness programs, and target young people, and can directly meet the healthcare shortage. However, senior living and senior
caregiving—the whole long-term care continuum—is a blank in all of these dis- cussions. We have to be prioritized. That’s where we can have immediate impact. We must get leaders to rethink program design based on the nation’s greatest needs Argentum’s Healthcare Apprenticeship
Expansion Program (HAEP) is a good example of the type of program that can work. It is funded by the Department of Labor to address skills gaps. It creates career pathways through education, for instance from CNA to LPN to RN, and for certifications and education for rehabilitation technicians, pathways for positions including CNAs, LPNs, RNs, and rehab technicians. In addition, it is creating new apprenticeship programs for healthcare leadership positions, such as nursing direc- tors and executive directors. Currently, it has an 85 percent retention rate, which is a good measure of its effectiveness. We need apprenticeship programs to show more people, as Argentum’s HAEP program does, that you may start at an entry level, but you can turn this work into a career.
PPI KEYNOTE SPEAKER
The Argentum Public Policy Institute will be held March 7-9, 2022, in Washington, D.C. It’s your opportunity to hear about the issues that will affect how you deliver senior living services in 2022 and beyond.
Keynote speaker at PPI is Charlie Cook, widely regarded as one of the nation’s leading authorities on U.S. elections and political trends. Al Hunt in the Wall Street Journal has referred to Cook as “the Picasso of election analysis.”
He founded the independent, non-partisan Cook Political Report in 1984, and now contributes to the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, writes his longtime weekly column for National Journal, and serves as a political analyst for both National Journal and for NBC News.
16 SENIOR LIVING EXECUTIVE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022
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