(birds chirping) (gentle music) - Care can't wait.

Linda actually needs the care.

Care can't wait.

Mother, I'm here.

Good morning!

- [Linda] Good morning.

- How are you?

- [Linda] Fine.

- Great.

- So we have this really exponentially growing older adult population, and at the moment don't have the workforce to sustain it.

- Okay, so let's get your blood pressure taken first, okay?

- Alright.

- [Angela] She is family.

Linda's definitely family.

Yeah, it does.

Fits in pretty good.

- [Interviewer] What does she mean to you?

- Everything.

All the world to me.

It's like having a daughter that I never had before.

- All right, you're 171/56.

That top number is a little high.

We don't make a lot of money here in Pennsylvania.

A lot of us make probably under $13, $14 an hour.

That's under that amount.

So just to try to feed a family, just to try to pay your bills, it's hard!

Step to the side.

I got you, don't worry about it.

I, myself, personally, I make $13.56 an hour, and I'm 50-something years old and I make that little bit of money.

We have no health insurance.

We have no paid time off.

There's no grieving time.

There's, like, no sick time.

I got surgery, I think I literally missed one day.

I had to come right back.

I just couldn't afford not to miss work.

I just couldn't do it.

I had to come.

So it impacts us physically, emotionally, mentally.

Really, it's draining on us.

Come over here a little more.

Don't sit down.

- If we are not investing in our direct care workforce, the quality of care, the levels of care have to go down.

I think if we don't act soon, we're gonna see some of those consequences that we're already seeing just grow and expand really rapidly.

We have an older adult population that is growing extremely rapidly.

If we don't act soon, there's not going to be a workforce that can care for them and the level of needs that they need.

- [Angela] So one sip of water at a time, so that means don't take the water, don't gulp it down.

- I need her.

I need her to make more money so she can take care of me.

I'm serious!

- All right, you warm?

You want to lower your chair a little more so you don't go sliding off of there, okay?

(somber music) - We have a few promising solutions that I think are really on the horizon for Pennsylvania as a state We have to talk about the minimum wage.

We have to talk about rate setting.

We have to talk about all of these different things, training and education and how can we improve that at a policy level to make it more standardized across the board?

So I think there's a lot of policy changes going on at the moment that are going to make older adults safer and going to improve the lives of the direct care workers that are providing this care.

- If I can speak directly to a policy maker, we have a life sustaining job.

You have the ability to write more money into the budget to pay us more money.

You have the ability to make sure that we have health insurance.

You have that ability.

Help us!

- Give them a little incentive.

Health insurance.

A little vacation money.

- There's a lot of policy changes that we're seeing right now at the state level that could help this issue.

I think the Governor in his budget address really lifted up the need for direct care workers, because it is such a critical function of our society.

So I think there's a lot of policy changes going on at the moment that are going to make older adults safer and going to improve the lives of the direct care workers that are providing this care.

(somber music)