In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) is a social service that allows people who need long-term care to receive it in the comfort and safety of their own homes. In Santa Clara County, over 36,000 IHSS workers provide long-term care services (including household work, personal care services, and paramedical services) to older adults and people with disabilities.

Click here to learn more about the essential long-term care IHSS workers provide.

In our last union contract, we won a path to beyond $20 an hour for Santa Clara home care workers, which became the second highest IHSS wage in the state of California at the time. 

But since then, our current wage has been outpaced by the rising cost of living. Santa Clara’s home care providers currently earn $20.04 an hour, but the living wage for one adult without children in the county is $32.99. Without IHSS workers, our neighbors who receive services through IHSS would lose access to essential long-term care.

We’re getting ready to start bargaining for a new contract that increases wages and improves benefits for workers and guarantees equitable access to long-term care for all who need it in our community.

Campaign Update 1: January 28, 2025

Santa Clara County home care workers spoke at the Board of Supervisors, sharing powerful testimonies and urging the Board to use existing funds to raise the IHSS wage now.