Action Alert: Sign the Petition to give Georgia's DSPs a Living Wage
Georgia citizens with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD) urgently need your help to ensure continued safe and stable support services! IDD providers are currently facing a crisis of epic proportion in their ability to obtain and preserve a skilled workforce of Direct Support Professionals (DSPs) to provide safe and secure services for people with IDD.
The DSP turnover rate for IDD providers is approaching 50% with the average DSP in Georgia having been on the job for less than one year. Georgia services are funded at a rate that only allows for an hourly DSP wage of $10.64 or $22,131 annually. No one in Georgia can live on that wage. No one can pay rent, buy food, gas, and insurance for that amount.
Please sign the petition urging Georgia's General Assembly to include funding in the state budget during the 2022 legislative session to provide an hourly wage for DSPs that will encourage stability, reduce turnover, and demonstrate our state’s belief that Georgians with IDD do deserve high quality support from a stable and skilled workforce. Georgia’s citizens with IDD desperately need your help NOW.