For more information about the author, click to view their website: Sharek Law Office
Raising the minimum wage by as little as 10 percent would significantly improve the safety and health of nursing home residents, according to new research.
Most direct care in nursing homes is provided by nursing assistants, who make up about 40 percent of the nursing home workforce and are among the lowest-paid workers in the U.S. economy. Nursing assistants help residents with activities of daily living like eating, bathing and dressing, and work with certified nurses and elder care teams to monitor patients’ conditions.
Due in part of their low wages, nursing assistants frequently change jobs for better pay or working conditions. “Between 60 percent and 85 percent of nursing assistants leave their employers each year, most often to go work in other nursing homes,” writes Krista Ruffini, a visiting scholar at the Minneapolis Federal Reserve. Nursing homes frequently report difficulty in recruiting and retaining staff, she says.
Ruffini recently looked at the impact increasing the minimum wage has on nursing home staff turnover and quality. She compared facilities in hundreds of U.S. counties that had increased their minimum wage with those that hadn’t between 1990 to 2017.
In findings based on her preliminary data published in a working paper, Ruffini found that “increasing the minimum wage by 10 percent would reduce the number of health inspection violations by 1 percent to 2 percent, the number of residents with moderate to severe pressure ulcers [bed sores] by about 1.7 percent, and the number of deaths by 3 percent.” The 3 percent reduction in deaths, she notes, translates to 15,000 fewer deaths in nursing homes each year.
Ruffini found that raising the minimum wage reduced turnover and increased tenure among nursing assistants. This greater continuity of care, she says, translated into improved health and safety conditions for the patients. At the same time, nursing home profits held steady because the extra costs were passed on in the form of higher fees.
Ruffini notes that her findings have particular relevance in a time when the coronavirus pandemic is overwhelming nursing homes. Comparing a facility’s number of COVID-19 deaths with its quality-of-care performance, she concluded: “The data provide some suggestive evidence that higher service quality is associated with fewer deaths from COVID-19 in nursing homes.”
As an estate planning and elder law attorney, I am becoming increasingly frustrated to see how the long term care system is failing our seniors. I had a conversation with a client this week, who feels that the government programs supporting seniors are broken. My clients mom is in a nursing home and we are assisting them to get Medicaid eligibility to pay the nursing home. What he said really resonated with me, because people are continuing to go broke due to the long term care system.In a recent podcast, I discussed the article that was published in the news, about the baby boomers being the wealthiest generation in history. However, 70% of the wealth is concentrated in 7% of the population. Most of the people we work with are the middle-class baby boomers, who are part of the other 93% population. They own their house and have some money in the bank. Most of them have worked for 40-50 years trying to save a nest egg for their retirement. They have been sold this story that they will have healthcare coverage with Medicare when they retire at 65, and believe they will be taken care of should they get sick.Medicare Wont Pay for Long Term CareUnfortunately, Medicare wont pay for long term care. We help many families every month, going through the process of trying to gain eligibility for Medicaid benefits to pay for long term care. This requires some dramatic legal moves and I can appreciate why my clients feel so frustrated.On the long term care website, I read that around 70% of baby boomers are going to need some form of long term care if they get dementia or Alzheimers. Added to that, 20% of those seniors will need long term care for more than five years. Given the cost of nursing homes in this country, which is $150,000 a year, this is unaffordable for most families.The Future is Uncertain, But We Can Still PlanWe dont know what the future holds, and we cannot prevent the likelihood of getting dementia. However, we can take steps to protect ourselves and avoid going broke. If I end up with dementia, I want to make sure my wife has a house to live in and some money in the bank. We meet many families who want to protect themselves from this system, and ask us to advise them. Some people tell us they already have a will and want to know why they need an estate plan. I understand their confusion when I advise my clients that they need more than a Will. It is unfortunate that the attorney they worked with previously, only offered them a Will. This could be because they met with attorneys who work with clients that have a high net worth. They may also have gone to a general practice law firm, who deals with divorces, traffic tickets and Wills, and not estate planning. The attorneys, financial advisors, tax man and nursing homes know that there are ways to avoid seniors going broke, but none of them are doing anything to help.A Will Is Not EnoughA Will only states who will get your stuff when you pass away. Estate planning is not only about who gets your stuff when you pass away but it helps to provide a sense of security, by protecting your house and money. You have worked for your money, and you should keep it not the government or the nursing home. I want to ensure you have a peaceful retirement, without worrying about going broke to pay for long term care. If you need more than five years of long term care, you definitely want to protect your assets.Many of my clients like to use trusts, and I recommend putting your house and some money into an irrevocable asset protection trust. This means that after five years, the house is safe from any claims from the nursing home. You would have to give up access to the equity of the house, assuming of course you wont need to do a reverse mortgage. You also wont receive a distribution from the trust. However, you can still live in your home, but the difference is your house is now protected from the nursing home if you get sick.You Can Avoid ProbateIf you have IRAs, they will need to be beneficiary designated, and will avoid probate. You can put any other money you have that you want access to, in a revocable trust. Having your house in the asset protection trust and money in a revocable trust, will allow you to avoid probate. Your life wont change, but a large percentage of your net worth is protected from long term care costs. This in my opinion is a much better estate plan for you.We will help you to establish a Power of Attorney, as well as health care planning. The result of planning like this, is that you dont have to worry about the nursing home, or probate. We also teach your children, who are the future executors and trustees, about their future roles and responsibilities. Handing legal documents to your adult child and expecting them to know what to do is unfair and unrealistic. Do The Right Thing Get An Estate Plan To learn more about doing good planning for your family, come to one of our Three Secrets Workshops. I am sure you want to have a good retirement without worrying about anything intercepting your inheritance to your kids. Our free workshops will teach you all you need to know to make informed decisions. You will then be able to have the best estate plan for you and your family. By offering the education in a classroom setting, it makes it more affordable for you to do estate planning. Visit sechlerlawfirm.com/workshops to register for a workshop now.
Why You Need To Do A Trust For Your KidsIf you have been listening to my radio shows or podcasts, and reading my blogs, you will know that I have focused a lot on estate planning for retirees, or soon to be retirees, and how to protect their stuff and their family from the issues that they face. These include care costs, eventual probate expenses and taxes. For most of my career I have been dedicated to working through those issues. In fact, my law firm exists because I watched my own grandfather go through all of this money paying for care. Sadly he was battling Alzheimers disease and spent many years in a nursing home. Having spent so many years working on elder law issues, weve become to know how to properly plan for these issues. Working With Young FamiliesRecently weve been working with folks from a young family demographic. My wife and I recently redid our own personal estate plan because our children are getting older, and there are changes in our financial situation too. It is necessary every few years to see if our estate plan does what we want it to do. Most of us learn from our experiences and the situations we find ourselves in, and how to respond the next time. Thats one of the one of the great things about life because we get to learn from mistakes and challenges. Ive been through some challenges with some families that are similarly situated to mine, when has thrown them a curveball. Many of them have had to deal with injuries, disabilities and deaths, as well as unexpected situations. This has made me realise the importance of needing to plan when it comes to younger families. We actually have an entire webinar series for younger families, called Five Secrets to Protect Your Family. We teach you the things you need to know to protect your kids from the cradle to college. Raising Good HumansAs parents of young children, I think our primary job is to raise good humans who will be happy and self sufficient. Hopefully they will find careers that theyre passionate about and a spouse they love and are happy with. Eventually they will have their own kids and it is my job to prepare them for that. I think we also need to accept that our duty of raising good humans who will outlive us, is something we need to plan for too. We need to also face the reality that although it would be devastating if both parents passed away suddenly, there needs to be plan in place for the kids to be taken care of.A Simple Will Is Not EnoughUnfortunately, most young parents of young kids dont actually plan for this. Most young families only have a will which will name who gets the stuff when they pass away. Most young families often dont have many assets, so it is important for them to buy life insurance. You would definitely need life insurance or a retirement account. While it is not enough to only have a Will, it can be used to do some planning. You would need to name an executor who will administer your estate, and guardians for your kids. A guardian would essentially step into your shoes if you pass away. However, guardianship ends when your child is 18 years of age. While they are considered an adult at age 18, leaving money to your 18 year old could be a big mistake for many reasons. I know that people will advise you that you only need a simple Will, which states that everything is left to your spouse and then to your kids. If your kid is a minor when they inherit money, your kid will get their money in a Uniform Transfer to Minors Act Account. This means that somebody else would be in control of the money, until the kid turns 21. However, after the age of 21, your kid is on their own. If I think about it, if at the age of 21 I had been left an inheritance of a million dollars, I would not have make good decisions with spending the money. I dont believe most 21 year old kids would know what to do either. This illustrates why it is not enough to just have a Will, and why one needs to plan for all eventualities.Why You Should Create a Trust for Your ChildI would encourage you to create trusts. The Trust has certain terms and conditions to determine what will happen with the money. Wills have to go through probate which is the court administration process for administering the Will. What happens when somebody passes away with a Will, the executor cant do anything until the judge allows him and it becomes a court process. The Will is then mailed to the beneficiaries, with details of what theyre allowed to have. This can take weeks or months to find out what the deceased owned. The probate process is a time consuming task and also expensive, and we advise to avoid it if possible. This is exactly why we suggest using a trust.Divorce is a Financial ThreatRather than giving the money to your kids outright, the money is held in a separate trust until they reach the age which you determine is suitable. This is known as an underage trust and it protects the kids from their own poor decisions as a youngster. When your child reaches the age you have agreed upon which is often 25 or 30, for them to receive their inheritance, the trust then terminates. However, you need to consider protecting your kids from the next potential issue and the biggest financial threat for adults in their 20s and 30s, which is divorce. What I like to do is for my kid to become a trustee on the trust. Were not distributing the money so it doesnt become a marital asset. It would also be protected from the general creditors, divorces and lawsuits. The money is held in trust for my kid until they turn 25 and can get control of the trust. This is effective estate planning and is more important than having a simple Will. It often happens that most people just do beneficiary designations on their life insurance policies. When the parent passes away, the kids get their money on their 21st birthday. This is not a good idea and it is better for that money to be in a trust. Having a good estate plan in place helps you to do your job as a parent and raise good people.Register for our Webinar for Young Families This is all possible when you start with education because educated decisions are better decisions. Thats why we offer a free webinar called Five Secrets to Protect your family. You can find it sechlerlawfirm.com/workshops. We teach you a lot of the things you need to know about how trusts work. We also share other important information you need to know. Join us!
Estate Planning Is About More Than Wills and InheritanceTraditionally, estate planning brings up thoughts of wills, trusts, and discussions about who inherits what. These are undoubtedly important, but theres another side to the storythe potential for incapacity. Life is unpredictable. Accidents, illnesses, or progressive conditions like dementia can render us unable to make decisions or communicate our wishes. Thats when the true test of an estate plan comes into play.The Spousal AssumptionTheres a widespread assumption that marriage grants spouses the ability to automatically make decisions for each other. This myth is pervasive, yet the legal system tells a different story. Strict privacy and healthcare laws mean that without explicit legal permissions such as a Power of Attorney or a healthcare directive a spouses hands may be tied, unable to manage finances, make medical decisions, or even get information from doctors.The Costly Path of ConservatorshipWithout proper documentation, the only recourse may be to seek a conservatorship where a court appoints someone to oversee the incapacitated persons affairs. Its a route fraught with challenges: it is time-consuming, can be quite expensive, and throws open what are very personal matters to the public eye.How to Protect Your Voice and Your ChoicesThe key to maintaining control is preparation. Here are the documents that every adult should consider: Durable Power of Attorney: This allows you to appoint a trusted individual to handle your financial affairs if you cannot do so yourself. Healthcare Power of Attorney: It enables you to designate someone to make healthcare decisions on your behalf in case youre incapacitated. Living Will: This document spells out your wishes regarding medical treatment, including life support and other critical decisions. The Role of TrustsA Revocable Living Trust can also play a pivotal role. By creating a trust, you not only plan for the distribution of your assets after your passing but also ensure that someone you trust can manage your affairs without court intervention if youre not able to during your life.Educate, Communicate, UpdateCreating these documents is just the first step. Educate the people youve appointed about their roles and your wishes. Keep the lines of communication open and review these documents regularly to ensure they reflect your current circumstances and wishes.Final ThoughtsJay Lenos situation is a lesson for us all, highlighting the need for comprehensive estate planning that anticipates not just death, but also lifes unexpected turns. It emphasizes the importance of preparing for situations where we might not be able to speak for ourselves. For those ready to take the next step, or if youve realized theres a missing piece in your estate plan, were here to guide you. Ensuring your estate plan is complete and up-to-date is the best way to protect yourself and your loved ones from the uncertainties of the future. Please feel free to contact the office at 724 546 6615 if you need assistance getting started.
Our Firm Prepares You for Life What makes our firm different is that we were built with the needs of growing families in mind. We understand you are BUSY, you are growing, you are planning for a life of prosperity and you value ease, convenience and efficiency. You are raising children, and caring for elderly parents, while also working hard to build your own nest egg for a lifetime of support. You want to know youve made the best decisions for your family and that your plan will work when your loved ones need it most. You want to make sure your minor children would be raised by the people you choose, and never by anyone you wouldnt want, and that your teens and adult children are properly prepared to care for you and what you leave behind. You want to feel confident that youve made the right choices, and handled everything so that you arent leaving behind a mess, when something happens. That is our focus as well. Weve developed unique systems to give you the same access to a Personal Family Lawyer as was previously only available to the super-wealthy, so you can have the guidance you need to build and maintain a life of prosperity and wealth. And, to keep your family out of court and out of conflict, which is the greatest risk to the people you love and all you have created, even if youve already worked with a traditional lawyer or created documents online. Our Team Is Here for You We encourage communication with our clients. In fact, weve thrown out the time clocks so you never have to be afraid to call with a quick question. Everything we do is billed on a flat-fee basis, agreed to in advance, so there are never any surprises. We have a whole team to serve you. When you call our office to ask your quick question, you wont have to wait hours or days for a phone call back. Youll get your question answered, right away. And, if you need to schedule a more in-depth legal or strategic call with your Personal Family Lawyer, a call will be scheduled when you're both available and ready for the call so we can make the very best use of your time and not waste your time by leaving voicemail after voicemail back and forth. And, we ensure the most important details of your planning are followed through on and your plan continues to work throughout your lifetime. We have a funding coordinator to ensure your assets are owned the right way throughout your lifetime and none of your assets will end up going through a long, expensive court process or being lost to the state because they were missed after your death. Weve created unique membership programs to keep your plan up to date year in and year out as well as give you access to our Trusted Team of Legal Experts for guidance on ANY legal or financial matter. One day you will need a lawyer. I dont know why and I dont know when, but when you do, you will be grateful you can call on us and well be here to advise you or get you out of a jam. We Help You Transfer Your Life and Legacy Lastly, we believe your financial wealth is only a small part of your overall Life and Legacy Planning which is made up of your far more valuable and most often lost upon incapacity or death intellectual, spiritual and human assets. These assets are what make you who you are, and sum up whats most important to you. And, a survey of inheritors has revealed that what they care about even more than inheriting your money, is inheriting these intangible assets. Most estate plans only focus on the transfer of your financial wealth to the next generation. Most people have such great intentions of passing on the intangible, but very few ever get around to it. Its just not a priority, until its too late. How much do you know about your grandparents values? Their most prized personal possessions? How they felt about you? What they had learned during their lifetime? If you are like most people, you know very little. Thats why we build the capture and passage of these most valuable assets into every estate plan we create. Not only will we help you pass on your money, but also your values, your insights, your stories and your experience the truly valuable assets your loved ones care about the most. Weve developed a tool that allows us to capture and pass on your whole family wealth, including your Intellectual, Spiritual and Human assets. I cant go into all of the details here, but well definitely talk about it when you come in for your Life and Legacy Planning Session.