Jesus Saavedra, 71, began picking cotton in California’s Central Valley when he was just 16 years old. Now retired, he has difficulty both standing and lying down due to constant pain from nerve damage in his hands and head and fibrosis throughout his body. His wife Maria, 70, believes his decades in the fields caused his injuries. She cares for him around the clock, paid through California’s In-Home Supportive Services program (IHSS).
The program provides funding for disabled, Medi-Cal qualified individuals to hire in home health providers, including family members. Maria Saavedra gets paid for 50 hours of caregiving each month — her limit set by the state — and earns $18 per hour, a rate negotiated by her union with Los Angeles County. Her hourly pay adds up to $900 each month.
SEIU 2015 and UDW/AFSCME 3930, the union locals that represent In-Home Supportive Services workers, have lobbied to change the way contracts are negotiated in order to give their members some relief. (Disclosure: SEIU 2015 and UDW are financial supporters of Capital & Main.)
Currently, the contracts are negotiated with each California county’s Board of Supervisors with a term of two to three years. Each county sets a different rate for hourly compensation.
The IHSS program employs nearly 700,000 caregivers. Workers in several of the state’s 58 counties make just above the state minimum wage of $16 an hour, and have only seen state mandated increases. While workers do receive state-mandated sick leave, they do not receive any paid time off.
Maria is one of over 229,000 IHSS workers in Los Angeles County. The county’s IHSS workers are struggling to make ends meet, according to data from SEIU 2015, the union representing them, and reviewed by Capital & Main. Among the study’s findings: More than a third of those workers have utilized public assistance, and more than 80% of respondents worked multiple jobs.
“Right now there’s not enough caregivers. There’s explosive growth in demand. If we’re trying to address this crisis, yes, you could do it county by county, but this is a statewide program.”~ Arnulfo De La Cruz, president, SEIU 2015
“Wages that are paid to IHSS as providers are not living wages,” Brandi Wolf, policy and research director at SEIU 2015, told Capital & Main.
Arnulfo De La Cruz, president of SEIU 2015, says the situation will continue to get worse unless the way contracts are negotiated changes. Wolf said SEIU Local 2015 believes that shifting California’s 58 counties to a single statewide contract would harness the collective bargaining power of hundreds of thousands of providers.
In 2023, the union introduced AB 1672, which would have given the union collective bargaining power with the Department of Health Care Services.
It did not make it out of its committee hearing. However, the union wants the legislation reintroduced in 2025.
“Right now there’s not enough caregivers. There’s explosive growth in demand. If we’re trying to address this crisis, yes, you could do it county by county, but this is a statewide program,” De La Cruz said. “If you want to address training and education, if you want to address standards, wages and benefits for the entire workforce, the best place to do that would be to have some set of standards statewide.”
Maria met her husband in her hometown of Tamazula de Gordiano, in the Mexican state of Jalisco, in 1974. Jesus Saavedra was visiting the small city from Madera, California, where he spent his days working in the fields picking grapes and cotton. A friend had invited him to visit. While there, Maria caught his attention.
“We just kind of met just by seeing each other,” Maria recalled through an interpreter.
The two of them struck up a conversation, and continued to talk for the next two years. Maria moved north to Los Angeles, and the pair got married shortly after. Jesus continued to work in the fields for several years in California’s Central Valley. After several years he switched to working in construction, facilitating demolition and irrigation projects until his retirement. Today, Maria cares for him around the clock.
“The issue of why these workers are continuing to live essentially in poverty is because the wages and benefits do not reflect the dignity of the work that they do.”~ Brandi Wolf, policy and research director, SEIU 2015
Studies have found that agricultural workers are more likely to develop fibrosis. Maria said she suspects her husband’s work may have had an impact on his health, and that he retired because his condition had declined.
“There’s times where he can’t get up or doesn’t get up, and I just have to constantly be checking back and checking on him,” Maria said through an interpreter.
On top of the roughly $900 Maria is paid per month, she and Jesus receive Social Security payments. Maria said to make ends meet she relies on food assistance from CalFresh and utilizes Section 8 vouchers to pay her rent. In the past, she says she worked part time at a local nonprofit. However, those hours meant she lost some of the benefits she received through the CalFresh program, putting her in an even more precarious financial position. Now, she just cares for her husband.
“The state isn’t really providing the number of [IHSS] hours needed,” Maria said through an interpreter. She estimates she actually spends about 18 hours per day caring for Jesus. “They think that I’m trying to ask for money or that we want more money. And it’s not that. It’s the fact that we can’t make ends meet.”
SEIU 2015’s Wolf says Maria’s case is similar to that of hundreds of other workers. “The issue of why these workers are continuing to live essentially in poverty is because the wages and benefits do not reflect the dignity of the work that they do,” she said. In California, the average living hourly wage for one adult is $27.32. IHSS workers currently make an average of $16.64 per hour. “IHSS providers are often the first provider of care for seniors and people living with disabilities and play a vital role in the care delivery system; their wages and benefits should be reflective of that fact.”
“I think the experience is very similar, across states,” Wolf said. “I don’t think the general public and, quite frankly, elected officials really understand the type of care that these workers are providing to their consumers.”
“We are negotiating under the very different political realities between San Francisco and Fresno County, of which we represent the workers in both,” Wolf said.
Wolf said there have been tremendous gains for IHSS workers in San Francisco, who are on a path to a $25 per hour wage. But in Fresno, the workers have only seen their wages rise 60 cents over minimum wage. Contract negotiations have been ongoing for more than 18 months.
Maria wants the state to provide more hours, and for there to be a living wage for workers like her.
“We need to have support, to have someone fight for us,” she said. “This work isn’t easy. It’s hard and requires strength and valor.”
This story was updated with information on UDW/AFSCME 3930.
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