14 Aug How much in salary and earnings do home health aides get paid?
Home health aides and personal care aides are vital paraprofessionals in healthcare. They provide hands-on care and support to seniors and individuals that are injured, chronically ill, or disabled. Learn about what salary and earnings that home health aides make nationally. Also, find out about pay rates in the state of Pennsylvania, and also locally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Also, find resources to see if a new healthcare career might be a good option for you to jumpstart your earnings potential.
What They Do
Home health aides and personal care aides help people with hands-on assistance and support. Individuals they serve might have disabilities, chronic illnesses, or cognitive impairment. Home health aides assist them in their daily living activities.
Work Environment
Home health aides and personal care aides work in a variety of settings. Most notably, a majority work right in the client’s home under a home healthcare model. However, home health aides can also be found in other settings. These might include group homes, day services programs, and other residential living or rehabilitative settings.
Becoming a Home Health Aide
Home health aides and personal care aides generally need a high school diploma or equivalent. However, a high school diploma is not a fixed requirement. Some positions do not require it, so it will depend on the agency or healthcare setting that they work in. The same is true for home health aide training programs. For example, CareBridge Academy’s home health aide program does not require a high school diploma or GED. Individuals working in certified home health or hospice agencies must complete formal training and pass a standardized test, like that found at CareBridge Academy’s 75-hour program.
Salary, benefits, earnings, and hourly pay
Nationwide, the median annual wages (salary plus other cash compensation) for home health aides is $24,060 per year. This comes out to $11.57 per hour of earnings.
Across the state of Pennsylvania, home health aides see a higher average salary than the nationwide average. In the state, HHAs average $25,810 per year, or $12.41 per hour in earnings and payment.
Finally, in Philadelphia and the surrounding areas (the tri-state area which includes parts of Delaware and New Jersey as well), the average wage is $26,220, or $12.61 per hour in payment and salary.
Home health aide median salaries in Philadelphia, the state of Pennsylvania, and across the United States
Job Outlook and Career Growth
The job outlook of home health aides is very good. Employment of home health aides and personal care aides is forecasted to explode 36 percent over the next ten years. This rate is much faster than the average for all occupations, which is only 5 percent. As the baby-boom population ages and the elderly population grows, the demand for the services of home health aides and personal care aides will continue to increase.
These trends are even more prevalent in both Pennsylvania and Philadelphia. For example, Pennsylvania has the fourth highest number of HHAs in the country (183,430), behind only California, New York, and Texas. This is notable considering that these states have significantly larger populations than in Pennsylvania. This is due to the fact that Pennsylvania has a larger percentage of aging adults and seniors as compared to the nationwide average. Since many HHAs work with older adults, that has led to a high level of HHAs in the state and may also contribute to a higher pay rate in Pennsylvania as compared to the rest of the United States.
In the greater Philadelphia area alone, there are 93,550 home health aides. With a very high number of HHAs in the area, the quantity of aides isn’t just higher than the state, but so is the per capita amount of home health aides.
Career Path Potential
Due to all of these factors, the need for HHAs will only continue to surge. An aging America creating millions of new healthcare positions including HHAs. On top of that, the higher proportion of HHAs in both Philadelphia and Pennsylvania points to a career that is not only stable, but continues to grow, and future earnings will follow. The high growth in careers for HHAs means that opportunities for those that get into the field will be plentiful. This includes having stable earnings and salary, as well as advancement opportunities that bring greater pay and benefits in the future.
Many recent graduates have discovered that the field has opened up new doors for them down the road. HHAs have a variety of career ladder options in front of them with different skills required and salaries paid. Some might end up in leadership roles. Others find a career track that leads to enhanced educational opportunities to pursue nursing, physician, or therapist positions. Still others gain exposure to new care settings that expand beyond the home care environment, such as those in individual and family settings, vocational rehabilitation services, or working in mental health or substance abuse facilities, among many others. Pay rates can vary widely for these, as well as certifications required.
Get started today
Whatever the case, an HHA is a position that checks many boxes in a career that is good not just now but also with a positive future. Home health aides find their roles to be stable, rewarding, satisfying, and never boring. Plus, there’s no college degree required. That means you can start earning a salary right away. With an endless array of career paths, your earnings and pay potential might be limitless.
Start your HHA training and be certified in as little as two weeks! Find out all about what you’ll learn in the program and when you’re ready, you can begin your application. Begin your registration today, and take a big step towards a bright future today.
CareBridge Academy offers a premier home health aide training program right in the heart of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. CareBridge Academy commenced it’s HHA program because it found a lack of affordable, flexible, and quality HHA training options. In addition, it saw an opportunity to offer a program that was also innovative and of superior educational standards. Plus, they offer high-caliber HHA instruction under the direct supervision of highly experienced nurse instructors that are both patient and caring.
At only $595, the CareBridge Academy HHA program offers the best of both worlds: a reasonable training cost which offers its graduates a certification that is highly flexible not restricted to just one home healthcare agency or one healthcare setting.
Find out more about CareBridge Academy and our other course offerings. Contact us today to learn more!
No Comments