Seniors Deserve Better: Tell MN Lawmakers to Support Minnesota Workers & Family Caregivers 

Email Your Lawmaker

Minnesota’s long-term care work force is in crisis. A shortage of skilled workers in nursing homes and home-care services have reached critical levels, taking a toll on workers and threatening the health and safety of vulnerable seniors. Now is the time to invest in better wages and benefits including sick pay.

What’s more, Minnesota’s family caregivers risk their own financial security to care for their loved ones. Only 13% of workers have paid family and medical leave through their employers, allowing them to take time off to care for a loved one. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the importance of a paid family leave program for caregivers struggling to care for loved ones.

Minnesota leaders must do more to make sure all workers have access to adequate pay, sick leave and paid family and medical leave.

Urge lawmakers to pass commonsense solutions this year to protect seniors: 

Invest in wages and benefits, including sick and safe time for the direct care work force that provides care for seniors.
Support Family Caregivers by passing the Paid Family and Medical Leave Act to provide partial wage replacement to care for a seriously ill family member or to take care of one’s own serious medical condition.

Tell lawmakers Minnesota seniors deserve better. They deserve care they can count on.

AARP Minnesota, 191 University Ave. W. Suite 500, St. Paul MN 55104

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Your Message

Subject Seniors Deserve Better: Support Minnesota Long-term Care Work

Dear Decision Maker,

Message Body

I'm writing to ask you to make family caregivers and the direct care workforce a priority this year by supporting increased wages and benefits including sick leave and Paid Family and Medical Leave.

If the pandemic has taught us anything, it is the importance of dedicated workers and family caregivers putting their lives on the line every day as they continue to care for the most vulnerable during this crisis. Nursing homes and other long-term care workers continued to show up to their jobs even as their workplaces became the epicenter of infections.

To address the dire workforce shortage in all settings, lawmakers must go beyond Hero Pay and increase wages and provide benefits including sick leave for these workers.

Working family caregivers have also felt the strain of the COVID-19 pandemic, exasperating stress and financial concerns. The pandemic demonstrated the importance of paid family leave for caregivers struggling to care for loved ones without leave.

It's time to prioritize and address the needs of both family caregivers and the long-term care workforce if we expect to meet the demands of an aging Minnesota.

Please support these common-sense measures:

•	 Increase wages and provide benefits including sick leave for the direct care workforce, especially for in-home care. 
•	Pass the Paid Family and Medical Leave Act to provide up to 12 weeks of partial wage replacement to care for a seriously ill family member or to take care of one’s own serious health condition.

Your support for family caregivers and long-term care workers is urgently needed to care for vulnerable Minnesotans.  Our seniors deserve better. They need care they can count on.

Thank you.

[First Name] [Last Name]
[Your Address]

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