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https://www.pressherald.com/2025/03/06/direct-care-workers-fight-for-restoration-of-cost-of-living-increases-in-maine-budget/
Ide McInerney said she loves her job helping people with intellectual disabilities at a group home in Saco. But she may not be able to afford to keep working there, she said.
McInerney said that with a wage of about $18 an hour, she might have to switch careers if she doesn’t get the cost-of-living raises that she was anticipating over the next three years.
“It’s on the table,” said McInerney, 48, of Old Orchard Beach. “If it came down to it, where I wouldn’t be able to live, with the cost of living going up, unfortunately, yes, I would have to leave.”
Cutbacks to planned cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, increases are one of the flash points in a fight over the Mills administration’s two-year budget proposal.
Eric Meyer, president and CEO of Spurwink Services, which provides behavioral health care in Maine, said “it’s an incredibly competitive” environment for trying to hire workers.
“People have lots of options,” Meyer said. “Eliminating the COLAs will dramatically impair our ability to hire and retain staff.”
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