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Low-Wage Home Health Care Occupations Exacerbate Poverty, Particularly for Women of Color
WASHINGTON
The wages of home health aides fail to lift many full-time workers out of poverty. A new article from the Center for Economic and Policy Research shows how this occupation, which is poised to expand rapidly, risks expanding gender, racial, and ethnic income inequality as it grows.
This analysis by CEPR researchers Anais Goubert, Julie Yixia Cai, and Eileen Appelbaum finds Black and Latinx women make up more than half of the occupation, and approximately 20 percent of each of the two groups live in households with poverty income, about 7 to 8 percentage points higher than that of white male home health aides.
The impending increase in this low-wage occupation raises concerns about the economic well-being of home health aides and their families. In the absence of policy interventions to raise pay, its growth signals an expansion of the low-wage labor market. It is vital to raise wages, ensure sufficient hours, and enhance training opportunities associated with jobs in this industry.
The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) was established in 1999 to promote democratic debate on the most important economic and social issues that affect people's lives. In order for citizens to effectively exercise their voices in a democracy, they should be informed about the problems and choices that they face. CEPR is committed to presenting issues in an accurate and understandable manner, so that the public is better prepared to choose among the various policy options.
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National 'Billionaires Eat First' Campaign Aims to Make Trump and GOP Pay for Aid Cuts
Organizers of the new campaign said Republicans are slashing nutrition assistance and other programs "after giving Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and other billionaires a massive tax break."
Nov 13, 2025
A nationwide campaign announced Thursday aims to rally Americans against US President Donald Trump and the Republican Party's unpopular effort to demolish what's left of the country's social safety net to help fund tax breaks for the ultrarich.
The Billionaires Eat First campaign officially launches Friday with events in the nation's capital and Montgomery, Alabama, where local leaders, advocates, and impacted families will gather to spotlight the harms of the GOP's cuts to federal nutrition assistance. Over the summer, congressional Republicans approved the largest-ever cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and the Trump administration used the prolonged government shutdown to throttle food benefits for millions.
During the shutdown, which ended on Wednesday, the more than 900 billionaires in the United States saw their combined wealth grow to a record $8 trillion as tens of millions of low-income people watched the Trump administration illegally withhold their nutrition benefits.
"Trump and congressional Republicans are taking food off the table for kids, seniors, and veterans, while families already struggle with high grocery costs," said Leor Tal, campaign director of Unrig Our Economy, the coalition that organized the new campaign in partnership with local organizations.
"And they’re doing this after giving Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and other billionaires a massive tax break," Tal added. "Families need to feed their loved ones; billionaires don’t need yet another tax break. It’s wrong."
Unrig Our Economy said that the Billionaires Eat First events will feature speeches from local leaders and people directly affected by the Trump-GOP SNAP cuts. The campaign is also a mutual aid effort, with volunteers expected to donate hundreds of thousands of meals to local food banks ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday.
"Across America, kids, seniors, and veterans have lost vital food assistance. Why? Because Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress chose to give billionaires and big corporations massive tax breaks, while cutting SNAP benefits in their tax law, and heartlessly withholding SNAP benefits during the government shutdown," the campaign's website states. "We’re standing up to say: it’s callous, it’s cruel, and it’s wrong."
In addition to Friday's events, the campaign will have stops in West Virginia and Pennsylvania on Saturday, and Louisiana, New York, and Arizona next week.
The campaign was announced hours after Trump signed funding legislation that ended the government shutdown—though the impacts of the standoff are expected to linger, with SNAP benefits still in chaos and health insurance premiums set to rise further as Republicans refuse to back an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies that expire at the end of the year.
Crystal FitzSimons, president of the Food Research & Action Center, implored the Trump administration and states to quickly deliver full November benefits to those who have not yet received them.
"It remains shocking that the administration did everything it could during the shutdown to keep much-needed food assistance from reaching those in need," said FitzSimons. "The administration went as far as the Supreme Court to keep SNAP benefits out of the hands of those in need. This unnecessary and harmful decision left millions of Americans hungry and in limbo."
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As Trump Drives Up Costs, Record Share of Subprime Auto Loans Overdue
"The vulnerable part of the economy is having an even tougher time making ends meet," said one finance professor.
Nov 13, 2025
Last month's jobs report may never be released after being delayed during the federal government shutdown, but other figures demonstrate the havoc President Donald Trump is wreaking on the US economy, including new data for subprime borrowers behind on car payments.
The share of US borrowers with low credit scores or limited credit histories who are at least 60 days past due on their auto loans rose to 6.65% in October, the highest percentage since Fitch Ratings began tracking it in the early 1990s.
"The vulnerable part of the economy is having an even tougher time making ends meet," Massachusetts Institute of Technology finance professor Christopher Palmer told Marketplace on Wednesday in response to the new data.
As Bloomberg reported Wednesday:
Miriam Neal in Atlanta is one of those struggling to afford all of her expenses. The 29-year-old lost her job as a research fellow in December and couldn't make her car payments, leading to her vehicle being repossessed. Thanks to a GoFundMe that she started in July, she was able to get her car back, but said she still can barely afford her bill.
"It's been a little bit difficult maintaining it with the car insurance, the maintenance, and my car loan," Neal said. "I'm usually about 30 days late."
She still hasn't been able to find employment and ended up having to move back in with her parents while she drives for Amazon Flex to make a little bit of money. Still, she estimates she makes only about $100 a day, which isn't enough for all of her bills.
Fitch's findings on missed car payments notably follow two key disruptions in the auto lending space.
"PrimaLend, which serves the 'buy-here-pay-here' auto financing market—where dealers sell and directly finance vehicles for customers with poor or limited credit—filed for bankruptcy protection last month," Reuters reported. "Tricolor, which sold cars and provided auto loans mostly to low-income Hispanic communities in the Southwestern United States, also filed for bankruptcy in September."
In mid-October, the credit score model development company VantageScore released an analysis showing that auto loans "have now evolved from being one of the least risky consumer credit products to one of the loan types most prone to delinquencies," as consumers struggle with rising interest rates, financing costs, and prices of cars, insurance, and repairs.
"Auto loans have not followed the trends of other credit products as delinquencies have been persistently trending up across all credit tiers and income groups over the past 15 years," said VantageScore's chief economist and strategy officer, Rikard Bandebo, in a statement. "Even after the industry tightened lending criteria three years ago, delinquencies have continued to rise."
A few days before the VantageScore analysis, Cox Automotive's Kelley Blue Book announced that in September, the average transaction price (ATP) of a new vehicle in the US had soared above $50,000 for the first time.
"It is important to remember that the new vehicle market is inflationary. Prices go up over time, and today's market is certainly reminding us of that," said Cox Automotive executive analyst Erin Keating last month. "The $20,000 vehicle is now mostly extinct, and many price-conscious buyers are sidelined or cruising in the used vehicle market. Today's auto market is being driven by wealthier households who have access to capital, good loan rates, and are propping up the higher end of the market."
"Tariffs have introduced new cost pressure to the business, but the pricing story in September was mostly driven by the healthy mix of EVs and higher-end vehicles pushing the new vehicle ATP into uncharted territory," she added. "We've been expecting to break through the $50,000 barrier. It was only a matter of time, especially when you consider the bestselling vehicle in America is a pickup truck from Ford that routinely costs north of $65,000. That's today's market, and it is ripe for disruption."
The downturn becomes more evident ...Record number of subprime borrowers miss car loan payments in October, data shows - www.reuters.com/business/aut...
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— Not Born Yesterday (@oatsmint.bsky.social) November 12, 2025 at 4:44 PM
Other recent findings that have shown the economic deterioration under Trump include a Thursday report from Democrats on the congressional Joint Economic Committee (JEC), which found that the average US family is spending around $700 more each month on basic items since Trump returned to office in January.
"As families across the country spend more to pay their bills and put food on the table, Democrats and Republicans should be working together to lower costs," said Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH), the JEC’s ranking member. "Instead, President Trump is pushing ahead with reckless tariffs that continue to fuel inflation and drive prices up even higher."
A closely watched University of Michigan survey revealed last week that since October, consumer sentiment has fallen over 6% to 50.3, the second-lowest level since 1978, and the "current economic conditions" index has dropped nearly 11% to an all-time low of 52.3.
Earlier in November, the Washington Post reported on layoff data from corporate outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which documented 153,000 job cuts in October, bringing the total for this year to 1.1 million.
"We haven't seen mega-layoffs of the size that are being discussed now—48,000 from UPS, potentially 30,000 from Amazon—since 2020 and before that, since the recession of 2009," said the firm's CEO, John Challenger. "When you see companies making cuts of this size, it does signal a real shift in direction."
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Institutions Urged to Cut Ties With Larry Summers After Latest Epstein Revelations
"These latest revelations ought to be the final straw," said a Summers critic.
Nov 13, 2025
Economist Larry Summers, a former president of Harvard University and top economic policy official under Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, is facing increased scrutiny after emails released this week showed he maintained a friendly relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein even after he served a term in prison for soliciting a minor.
The emails, which were released by investigators in the House of Representatives on Wednesday, revealed that Summers regularly conversed with Epstein on a wide range of topics, years after Epstein victims had filed lawsuits against him and his associates that contained lurid details about his alleged underage sex-trafficking ring.
In one email, flagged by writer Jon Schwarz, the then-64-year-old Summers asked Epstein for advice about a woman he appeared to be pursuing, while complaining about her relegating him to being a "friend without benefits." The email was sent in March of 2019, just months before Epstein would be indicted on charges of sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors.
Another email, flagged by historian Sam Hasselby, showed Summers' wife, Harvard English professor Elisa New, recommending that Epstein read the book Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, which is about a middle-aged professor professor who kidnaps and sexually abuses a 12-year-old girl. New described the book to Epstein as the story of "a man whose whole life is stamped forever by his impression of a young girl."
In a statement given to the Harvard Crimson, Summers called his relationship with Epstein one of the "great regrets in my life," and "a major error of judgement."
This acknowledgement was not enough to satisfy the government watchdog group Revolving Door Project, which on Thursday said Summers should lose his positions at Harvard, where he is currently a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, and at the OpenAI Foundation, where he currently sits as a member of its board of directors.
Revolving Door Project Executive Director Jeff Hauser said that the emails showed "a close personal bond between the two men, long after Epstein’s conviction for sex crimes against minors" and added that "it is well past time for the powerful institutions that work closely with Summers—including OpenAI—to distance themselves from him, and anyone with a close relationship to Epstein."
Hauser also emphasized that Summers' years-long relationship with Epstein was not a one-time moral lapse but part of a long history of unethical behavior.
"I have previously warned about Summers’ unethical behavior and ties to unsavory businesses, but these latest revelations ought to be the final straw," he said. "It is disgusting that Summers has played such a crucial role in government at one of America's premier universities for so long. Companies and institutions affiliated with him—including the world’s most influential AI company, and two of the nation’s premier news outlets—ought to demand his immediate resignation."
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