Weighing obligations to home care workers and Medicaid recipients.

In June 2016, a US Department of Labor rule extending minimum wage and overtime pay protections to home care workers such as certified nursing assistants and home health aides survived its final legal challenge and became effective. However, Medicaid officials in certain states reported that during the intervening decades when these protections were not in place, their states had developed a range of innovative services and programs providing home care to people with disabilities-services and programs that would be at risk if workers were newly owed minimum wage and overtime pay. In this article, we examine whether the Department of Labor was right to extend these wage protections to home care workers even at the risk of a reduction in these home care services to people with disabilities. We argue that it was right to do so. Home care workers are entitled to these protections, and, although it is permissible under certain conditions for government to infringe workers' occupational rights and entitlements, these conditions are not satisfied in this case.

Seattle's minimum wage ordinance did not affect supermarket food prices by food processing category.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the impacts of Seattle's minimum wage ordinance on food prices by food processing category. DESIGN: Supermarket food prices were collected for 106 items using a University of Washington Center for Public Health Nutrition market basket at affected and unaffected supermarket chain stores at three times: March 2015 (1-month pre-policy enactment), May 2015 (1-month post-policy enactment) and May 2016 (1-year post-policy enactment). Food items were categorized into four food processing groups, from minimally to ultra-processed. Data were analysed across time using a multilevel, linear difference-in-differences model at the store and price level stratified by level of food processing. SETTING: Six large supermarket chain stores located in Seattle ('intervention') affected by the policy and six same-chain but unaffected stores in King County ('control'), Washington, USA. SUBJECTS: One hundred and six food and beverage items. RESULTS: The largest change in average price by food item was +$US 0·53 for 'processed foods' in King County between 1-month post-policy and 1-year post-policy enactment (P < 0·01). The smallest change was $US 0·00 for 'unprocessed or minimally processed foods' in Seattle between 1-month post-policy and 1-year post-policy enactment (P = 0·94). No significant changes in averaged chain prices were observed across food processing level strata in Seattle v. King County stores at 1-month or 1-year post-policy enactment. CONCLUSIONS: Supermarket food prices do not appear to be differentially impacted by Seattle's minimum wage ordinance by level of the food's processing. These results suggest that the early implementation of a city-level minimum wage policy does not alter supermarket food prices by level of food processing.

How Has the Affordable Care Act Affected Work and Wages?

In a review of the evidence, the authors find that the ACA had minimal effect on employment, hours of work, and compensation. This brief provides critical perspective on the effects of reforms on labor markets for federal and state policymakers as they consider changing or repealing the law.

RCN to ballot for industrial action if pay cap remains.

RCN president Cecilia Anim (pictured) has urged nurses to make their voices heard following the announcement of a summer of protest over pay.

Council tax precept failed to cover cost of NLW.

Charging residents extra council tax to help pay for social care is insufficient to cover current funding gaps and has failed to cover the cost of the national living wage (NLW), a report warns.

[THE IMPLEMENTATION OF "EFFECTIVE CONTRACT" EXEMPLIFIED BY THE MEDICAL CENTER OF YAKUTSK].

The article considers issue of implementation of employment agreement by way of effective contract exemplified by the Yakutsk medical center of the Republic Sakha (Yakutia). The new job descriptions, criteria of effectiveness, ratings of implementation of functions of medical job position were developed. At that, mechanisms of registration and implementation of social guarantees in respect of health workers were proposed.

Effects of social, economic, and labor policies on occupational health disparities.

BACKGROUND: This article introduces some key labor, economic, and social policies that historically and currently impact occupational health disparities in the United States. METHODS: We conducted a broad review of the peer-reviewed and gray literature on the effects of social, economic, and labor policies on occupational health disparities. RESULTS: Many populations such as tipped workers, public employees, immigrant workers, and misclassified workers are not protected by current laws and policies, including worker's compensation or Occupational Safety and Health Administration enforcement of standards. Local and state initiatives, such as living wage laws and community benefit agreements, as well as multiagency law enforcement contribute to reducing occupational health disparities. CONCLUSIONS: There is a need to build coalitions and collaborations to command the resources necessary to identify, and then reduce and eliminate occupational disparities by establishing healthy, safe, and just work for all.

New York's Health Care Workforce Recruitment and Retention Act: an investigation of the effects of nonrecurring increases in health worker wage on health worker supply.

This article analyzes New York's Health Care Workforce Recruitment and Retention Act of 2002. The analysis comes in 4 parts: part 1 provides a brief overview of New York's economy as it relates to health care, a feel for the political climate at the time, and a detailed presentation of the chain of events that connect this climate to the birth of the Health Care Workforce Recruitment and Retention Act of 2002; part 2 consists of a breakdown of the provisions contained within bill, including major and minor goals, intended effects, and the mechanics behind raising supporting funds; part 3 explores what actually happened by evaluating available data to determine whether the bill's 2 major goals of workforce recruitment and retention were fulfilled; and finally, part 4 will take all the aforementioned information to determine the overall success of the bill, the implications, and specific suggestions for future policy changes that time has revealed since its inception.

Effects of employer-sponsored health insurance costs on Social Security taxable wages.

The increasing cost of employer contributions for employee health insurance reduces the share of compensation subject to the Social Security payroll tax. Rising insurance contributions can also have a more subtle effect on the Social Security tax base because they influence the distribution of money wages above and below the taxable maximum amount. This article uses the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey to analyze trends in employer health insurance contributions and the distribution of those costs up and down the wage distribution. Our analysis shows that employer health insurance contributions increased faster than overall compensation during 1996-2008, but such contributions grew only slightly faster among workers earning less than the taxable maximum than they did among those earning more. Because employer health insurance contributions represent a much higher percentage of compensation below the taxable maximum, health insurance cost trends exerted a disproportionate downward pressure on money wages below the taxable maximum.

[Labor regularization of health workers paid with funds from the Mexican System for Social Protection in Health]. / Regularización laboral de trabajadores de la salud pagados con recursos del Seguro Popular en México.

OBJECTIVE: The process of regularization of workers paid by the Social Protection Health System of Mexico is described and analyzed. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Primary and secondary data collected by the external evaluation of the Mexican System for Social Protection in Health in 2009 were used. RESULTS: The regularization clearly improved the labor conditions of workers contracted by the system but a broader systemic implication of regularization does not seem to be necessarily positive. CONCLUSION: It is important to consider the need to guarantee that this type of changes in the contractual conditions of workers benefit all actors, particularly the insured population.