Many jobs, but those growing fastest pay less

The largest two categories of America’s fastestgrowing jobs offer some of the country’s lowest wages and weakest benefits.

Over the next 10 years, analysts expect to see 1.2 million more jobs for home health and personal care aides, according to a report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s more positions than the projected job creation in the eight other most rapidly growing fields combined.

By 2026, the home health aide industry will add 425,600 positions, a rise of 46.7 percent, the government estimates show. The occupation’s median annual wage today is $22,600.

The numbers of personal care aides, who handle mostly domestic tasks, meanwhile, is expected to rise by 754,000 jobs, or 37.6 percent. They typically make $21,000 per year.

Solar and wind jobs, which pay more, are projected to grow by 105 percent and 96 percent respectively, but the tiny fields will add just 17,400 new positions in the next decade, researchers predict.

Roughly nine in 10 caretaker positions are held by females. Nearly half identify as black or Hispanic.

Workers in these roles share one central mission: They care for people who struggle to care for themselves. But many live in poverty.

“They’re typically the breadwinners in lowincome households,” said Ariane Hegewisch, a labor economist at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research who co-wrote a study last year about lowwage jobs filled by women. “But what they earn makes it hard for them to pay the rent, or get an education to move into better paying jobs, or look after their children.”

Fifty-five percent of home health aides subsist on incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty line, her research found.