Over 1,371,000 nursing assistants were employed in the U.S. as of May 2020 according to the most current occupational employment data available from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The New England region was home to more than 90,000 of those nursing assistant jobs. Per BLS data, New England was an above average region for nursing assistant pay as every state in the region had an annual mean wage level for nursing assistants that topped the national average. Moreover, about 45% of the regions nursing assistants worked in Massachusetts, which ranked among the five best states in the nation for nursing assistant annual mean wage levels. A further examination of BLS data from May 2020 provides the following state-level details about nursing assistant pay in New England:
Nursing Assistant Pay in New England
State
# Employed
Annual Mean Wages
Wage Rank*
CT
21,370
$35,400
11th
MA
40,550
$37,160
5th
ME
9,140
$32,670
22nd
NH
7.600
$34,550
12th
RI
9,110
$34,280
15th
VT
2,460
$33,450
18th
U.S.
1,371,050
$32,050
-------
(*) annual mean wage ranking among the 50 states and the District of Columbia
A population group, facility or geographic area where access to mental health care is insufficient may be designated by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) as a mental health HPSA (health professional shortage area). This HRSA designation can be based on the size of the HPSA's population relative to either (a) the number of psychiatrists, or (b) the combined number of psychiatrists and certain other mental health care practitioners, that serve the community. Currently, most HRSA mental health care shortage designations are based on population size relative to the number of psychiatrists serving the HPSA. As of December 31, 2021, more than 136.5 million Americans lived in a mental health care shortage area according to HRSA data.
The Mid-East U.S. region, which includes the District of Columbia and five states, had nearly 7.7 million residents living in mental health HPSAs. This accounted for about 5.6% of the U.S. population who lived in mental health HPSAs as of December 31, 2021. The HRSA estimates that HPSAs in the Mid-East would need 523 more mental health care providers to eliminate the shortage in the region. The Mid-East's mental health care provider deficit thus represented about 7.6% of the nation's mental health care provider shortage. A closer examination of December 31, 2021, HRSA data reveals the following state-level details about the Mid-East's mental health care shortage:
The Mid-East's Mental Health Care Shortage
State
(1) HPSAs
(2) Population
(3) Shortage
DE
12
261,402
23
DC
10
133,945
28
MD
50
1,334,263
79
NJ
35
40,892
14
NY
182
4,169,792
276
PA
125
1,729,047
103
Region
414
7,669,341
523
U.S.
6,078
136,575,592
6,851
(1) Designated Geographic, Population Group and Facility HPSAs with a mental health care shortage
(2) Population of designated HPSAs
(3) Mental Health Care practitioners needed to remove HPSA Designation
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' (BLS) most current occupational data put medical assistant (MA) employment in the U.S. at over 710,000 as of May 2020. Per BLS data, nearly 25,500 medical assistants were employed in the five-state Rocky Mountain region at that time. In general, the region is a marginally good one for medical assistant pay based on BLS data. Colorado, the 11th best state in the nation for medical assistant annual mean wage levels, was home to about 47% of the region's MAs. In all, about 53% of the region's medical assistants lived in a state where the annual mean wage level for MAs exceeded the national average. A closer examination of BLS data reveals the following state-level details about medical assistant pay in the Rocky Mountain region:
Medical Assistant Pay in the Rocky Mountain Region
State
# Employed
Annual Mean Wages
Wage Rank*
CO
12,010
$39,040
11th
ID
3,200
$36,760
23rd
MT
1,410
$36,980
22nd
UT
7,990
$35,170
29th
WY
870
$35,660
28th
U.S.
710,200
$36,930
-------
(*) annual mean wage ranking among the 50 states and the District of Columbia
The most current occupational employment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) put the number of family medicine physicians employed in the United States at more than 98,000 as of May 2020. More than 23,500 family medicine physicians were employed at that time in the twelve-state Southeast region of the country. BLS data reveals the region to have much disparity in family physician pay. Three states in the region ranked among the top third of all states for family medicine physician annual mean wages, while at the same time six other Southeastern states ranked among the bottom third of states on the same metric. Overall, however, the region was a subpar one for family physician pay as the data showed about 69% of the region's practitioners lived in a state where the annual mean wage for family medicine physicians was below the national average. A closer examination of May 2020 data from the BLS details the following about family medicine physician pay in the Southeast:
Family Medicine Physician Pay in the Southeast
State
# Employed
Annual Mean Wages
Wage Rank*
AL
780
$227,770
13th
AR
1,360
$209,370
34th
FL
8,510
$204,390
40th
GA
1,780
$232,190
10th
KY
1,010
$180,700
48th
LA
360
$204,500
39th
MS
870
$208,610
35th
NC
1,360
$223,190
17th
SC
2,420
$216,590
25th
TN
1,010
$216,170
26th
VA
3,700
$207,450
36th
WV
390
$173,790
50th
U.S.
98,590
$214,370
-------
(*) annual mean wage ranking among the 50 states and the District of Columbia
Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) data as of December 31, 2021, indicated that over 64.2 million Americans lived in communities or settings designated as a dental health HPSA (health professional shortage area). A dental health HPSA is a population group, geographic area, or facility with substandard dental care access because too few dentists serve the community relative to its population size. HPSAs in the five-state Great Lakes region had over 8.7 million residents living in dental care shortage settings, accounting for just under 13.6% of the U.S. population who lived in dental care HPSAs. The HRSA estimates that HPSAs in the Great Lakes states would need 1,581 more dentists to eliminate the dental care shortage in the region. This deficit represented just over 14.1% of the nation's shortage of dentists. A deeper look at HRSA data provides the following state-level summary view of the Great Lakes region's dental care shortage:
The Great Lakes Region's Dental Care Shortage
State
(1) HPSAs
(2) Population
(3) Shortage
IL
244
2,723,165
497
IN
104
1,287,312
224
MI
249
1,497,513
286
OH
161
1,984,730
368
WI
122
1,226,496
206
Region
880
8,719,216
1,581
U.S.
6,803
64,236,250
11,181
(1) Designated Geographic, Population Group and Facility HPSAs with a dental care shortage
(2) Population of designated HPSAs
(3) Dental Care practitioners needed to remove HPSA Designation
When residents of a geographic area, facility, or population group have bad access to basic medical care because too few primary care physicians service the area relative to its population size, the setting can be designated a primary care HPSA (health professional shortage area) by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). As of December 31, 2021, the HRSA reported that more than 86.4 million Americans lived in designated primary care HPSAs. The seven-state Great Plains region had 4.7 million residents who lived in a primary care shortage area as of 12/31/21. This number represented about 5.4% of the U.S. population that was living in primary care shortage areas at that time. The HRSA estimates that to eliminate the shortage Great Plains region HPSAs would need 980 additional primary care physicians. As such, the region accounted for about 6.5% of the national deficit of primary care physicians. A closer review of 12/31/21 HRSA data reveals the following state-level details about the Great Plains' primary care shortage:
The Great Plains' Primary Care Shortage
State
(1) HPSAs
(2) Population
(3) Shortage
IA
132
638,024
104
KS
184
780,837
121
MN
193
1,074,432
150
MO
329
1,643,257
492
NE
85
44,242
9
ND
90
224,217
49
SD
100
295,847
55
Region
1,113
4,700,856
980
U.S.
7,613
86,473,101
15,184
(1) Designated Geographic, Population Group and Facility HPSAs with a primary care shortage
(2) Population of designated HPSAs
(3) Primary Care practitioners needed to remove HPSA Designation
There were almost 96,000 general dentists at work in the U.S. as of May 2020 according to the latest occupational statistical information published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Just over 12,500 general dentists were employed in the four-state Southwestern U.S. For general dentists, on the whole the region was a good one in terms of pay, as about 95% of the region's practitioners lived in a state where the general dentist annual mean wage level topped the national average. Further examination of May 2020 BLS data reveals the following details about general dentist pay in the Southwestern U.S.:
After Miscarriages, Workers Have Few Guarantees for Time Off or Job-Based Help
Bryce Covert
For three years, Rachel Makkar said, she thrived in her job as a broker and asset manager at J&B Building Co. in Colorado. She excelled at her work — she said her performance reviews noted that — and she thought it was “the best place I’ve ever worked.”
That changed in August. After trying for “a really long time” to conceive a second child, she suffered an early miscarriage at home one weekend. She couldn’t go to work that Monday. “I was really traumatized,” she said. “That entire first week was like a heightened level of emotion that I hadn’t really been through before.” She also had a doctor’s appointment to ensure she wasn’t experiencing an ectopic pregnancy, which would have required immediate surgery.
She had emailed her bosses, informing them of the miscarriage and her need to take Monday off, which she had enough paid leave to cover. Because of the pandemic, she had been working from home several days a week and opted to do that again Tuesday because she was still bleeding and her face was “so puffy from crying,” she said. She returned to the office, as scheduled, on Wednesday, she said, and then, given that her managers were out of the office, worked from home the rest of the week.
The following week, 10 days after her miscarriage, one of the company owners called her and fired her, allegedly for working from home repeatedly, even though others at the firm had similar hybrid schedules, according to Makkar. She was “shocked.”
When Makkar reminded him that she had worked from home because of her miscarriage, she said he responded, “When my wife had a miscarriage in the beginning of our marriage, she only took a half a day off work.”
Getting fired right after her miscarriage “was really, really awful,” she said through tears. “You’re already so devastated, and it’s just another blow.”
Makker filed a complaint based on her allegations against J&B with the Colorado Civil Rights Division, accusing the company of gender and pregnancy discrimination for her firing, in violation of Colorado state laws. “This shouldn’t have to happen to other women,” she said.
Makkar’s lawyer, David E. Gottlieb, said they “intend to file a lawsuit in the coming months in Colorado state court.”
A lawyer for J&B said its policy is not to comment on ongoing litigation and declined to provide any responses the company may have filed with the state. “We’re just confident that once the facts are reviewed the company will be vindicated,” he said.
Miscarriage, which occurs in about a quarter of all pregnancies, is the most common form of loss of a pregnancy. And yet there are no national laws that protect people when they need time off from work to deal with the loss.
The physical needs of someone who experiences a miscarriage vary greatly. Within the first week or two, symptoms may resemble a heavy menstrual period with cramping and some pain. The later in the pregnancy that a miscarriage occurs, the more likely there will be significant bleeding, “to the point where it leads to anemia in some cases,” said Dr. Wael Salem, a reproductive endocrinologist and fertility specialist with CCRM San Francisco. Some people have such heavy contractions that they need pain management, he added. Miscarriages in the second trimester or later may require procedures needing hospital admission. The aftereffects are often unpredictable and can last for weeks or months.
“Miscarriage is not a one-and-done thing at all,” Salem said. “It drags on physically, mentally, and emotionally.”
The emotional aspect “can be a very traumatic experience,” noted Maria Brann, a professor of communications studies at Indiana University who has studied miscarriage for a decade. Some people blame themselves even though the vast majority of early miscarriages are due to chromosomal abnormalities beyond people’s control. Compounding the grief is the lack of established rituals that accompany other losses, as well as a stigma some people attach to miscarriage.
In the wake of such trauma, “it’s very difficult to focus,” Brann said. “An individual is probably not going to be as productive.”
“It is really important that we encourage women to take care of themselves,” Brann said. Otherwise, the grief won’t be processed and it can “cause even greater mental anguish later on.”
But many workers find it difficult to get time off from work. The federal Pregnancy Discrimination Act prohibits employers from treating workers who are pregnant, give birth, or have related medical conditions — including miscarriage — worse than comparable co-workers. Courts, however, have interpreted that law differently, even after a 2015 Supreme Court decision decided in favor of a plaintiff who claimed pregnancy discrimination. Judges have dismissed two-thirds of cases in the aftermath, according to a review by A Better Balance, a national legal nonprofit promoting workplace rights.
Thirty states and five localities — including Colorado — have enacted laws that require employers to offer workers accommodations related to pregnancy, which can include time off to recover from a miscarriage. But outside those states, workers are protected only by the pregnancy act or the Americans with Disabilities Act, if a miscarriage is severe enough to substantially limit a “life activity.”
Currently, 13 states, 20 cities, and four counties, also including Colorado, have enacted laws requiring some employers to provide paid sick leave to workers for medical needs, such as for the physical and mental health impacts of miscarriage. They don’t require employees to say why they need the time off, other than perhaps producing a doctor’s note.
“It’s not putting the onus on the worker to have to reveal something that might be very personal and very sensitive,” said Sarah Brafman, a senior policy counsel at A Better Balance.
Nine states and the District of Columbia have paid family leave programs, which can be used for more serious complications resulting from miscarriage. Elsewhere workers can take unpaid leave through the Family and Medical Leave Act if they qualify.
To fill the gaps, Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) and Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) introduced legislation that would ensure three days of paid leave for miscarriage and other fertility challenges. Democrats have also put forward federal legislation to guarantee paid sick leave, and they’ve included paid family leave in President Joe Biden’s social spending plan, although that provision is meeting stiff opposition from some lawmakers and the bill is languishing in Congress.
Makkar is living with the repercussions of her miscarriage. “It’s all so traumatizing still,” she said. She’s trying to find a new job, but the search is complicated. She’s “terrified of getting myself in this situation again,” she said, because she wants to have more children. “I don’t want to be somewhere that that’s not going to be supported.”
In its most recent release of occupational statistical data, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that more than 257,000 Americans were working as EMTs (emergency medical technicians) and paramedics as of May 2020. The six-state Far Western U.S. accounted for a bit less than 31,500 of those EMT and paramedic jobs. BLS data revealed the Far West to be the best region in the nation for EMT and paramedic pay, as every state in the region had an annual mean wage level for EMTs and paramedics that exceeded the national average. Moreover, four states in the region ranked among the top five states in the nation for EMT and paramedic annual mean wages. A closer examination of May 2020 BLS data shows the following about EMT and paramedic pay in the Far Western U.S.:
EMT and Paramedic Pay in the U.S. Far West
State
# Employed
Annual Mean Wages
Wage Rank*
AK
600
$50,030
4th
CA
22,690
$48,280
5th
HI
500
$58,580
1st
NV
1,960
$42,040
17th
OR
1,990
$43,580
14th
WA
3,730
$56,910
2nd
U.S.
257,700
$40,370
-------
(*) annual mean wage ranking among the 50 states and the District of Columbia
The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) designates a geographic area, population group or facility where access to mental health care is substandard as a mental health HPSA (health professional shortage area). This designation can be based on the size of the HPSA's population relative to either (a) the number of psychiatrists that service the area, or (b) the combined number of psychiatrists and certain other types of mental health care providers that serve the community. Currently, most mental health HPSA designations are based on population size relative to the number of psychiatrists serving the community.
As of December 31, 2021, mental health care HPSAs in the six-state Far West region had 21.2 million residents, accounting for about 15.5% of the U.S. population who lived in mental health care shortage areas. To eliminate the shortage, the HRSA estimates that Far West HPSAs would need 1,065 additional mental health care providers. Further examination of HRSA data reveals the following state-level details about the Far West's mental health care shortage:
The Far West's Mental Health Care Shortage
State
(1) HPSAs
(2) Population
(3) Shortage
AK
316
398,691
17
CA
586
12,357,573
648
HI
32
496,032
28
NV
52
2,445,765
111
OR
136
2,392,009
114
WA
177
3,113,241
147
Region
1,299
21,203,311
1,065
U.S.
6,078
136,575,592
6,851
(1) Designated Geographic, Population Group and Facility HPSAs with a mental health care shortage
(2) Population of designated HPSAs
(3) Mental Health Care practitioners needed to remove HPSA Designation
According to data from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), as of December 31, 2021, almost 64.2 million Americans lived in a dental health professional shortage area (HPSA). A dental health HPSA is a geographic area, population group, or facility where access to dental care is impaired because too few dentists work in the area relative to the size of the population. In the four-state Southwest, as of December 31, 2021, over 7.6 million residents lived in dental care shortage areas, or about 11.8% of all Americans who lived in a dental health HPSA. The HRSA estimates that HPSAs in the Southwest would need 1,254 more dentists to eliminate the dental care shortage in the region. This deficit represented about 11.2% of the national shortage of dentists. Here is a summary look at the Southwest's dental care shortage:
The Southwest's Dental Care Shortage
State
(1) HPSAs
(2) Population
(3) Shortage
AZ
211
2,307,555
398
NM
107
1,150,822
223
OK
169
1,044,074
181
TX
311
3,099,494
452
Region
798
7,601,945
1,254
U.S.
6,803
64,236,250
11,181
(1) Designated Geographic, Population Group and Facility HPSAs with a dental care shortage
(2) Population of designated HPSAs
(3) Dental Care practitioners needed to remove HPSA Designation
Vaccine Wars Ignite in California as Lawmakers Seek Stronger Laws
Angela Hart
SACRAMENTO — California is poised to become the front line of America’s vaccination wars.
State lawmakers are drafting the toughest covid-19 vaccine legislation in the country, backed by a new pro-vaccine lobbying force promising to counter anti-vaccine activists who have threatened government officials and shut down public meetings across the state. Legislators want to require most Californians to get the shots — not just schoolchildren and health care workers — and eliminate the exemptions that would allow many people to get out of them.
But vaccine opponents say Democratic-led efforts to adopt stricter vaccine requirements are only helping propel their movement, handing them unparalleled momentum to build their ranks both in California and nationally.
Vaccine opponents are focusing their ire on Democratic state Sen. Richard Pan of Sacramento, a pediatrician and the driving force behind three state vaccination laws passed since 2012. Prompted by outbreaks of pertussis and measles, the laws make it harder for schoolchildren to get out of childhood vaccinations.
“We have to be willing to take a stand,” said Pan, who is developing legislation to crack down on covid vaccine exemptions. “We need to be able to respond to this pandemic and future pandemics, but there is this asymmetrical warfare going on right now, and we’re seeing the anti-vaccine movement trafficking in misinformation, threats, and violence.”
The coming fight in California foreshadows looming vaccine battles across the country. President Joe Biden and Democratic governors are pressing vaccination as the most crucial public health measure for combating the coronavirus pandemic — while some prominent Republican governors cast doubt on the safety and value of vaccines, inciting anti-vaccination activists.
In California, the ultimate decision on toughening state vaccination laws will fall to Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is facing reelection in November after defeating a recall attempt last year.
Newsom has played to both sides recently. He has pushed tough vaccine mandates for groups such as health care workers, children, and teachers. But in nearly every pandemic-related press conference since October and on national TV, he has also reassured the public that they can receive medical, religious, and personal belief exemptions from his mandates.
“He’s trying to be comforting and non-confrontational, but it sends a message that if you don’t want to get the vaccine, don’t get it,” said Catherine Flores Martin, executive director of the California Immunization Coalition. “Gov. Newsom struggles with this — he’s trying to have it both ways.”
Pushing Mandates ‘Aggressively’
Anti-vaccine demonstrations dominated Sacramento during California’s last big vaccination fight, in 2019. In weekly rallies outside the Capitol, hundreds of activists railed against lawmakers, toting a portrait of Pan’s face splattered in red. They shouted down lawmakers in legislative hearings and at one point hurled menstrual blood at state senators.
The fight that year was over Pan’s bill to crack down on bogus medical exemptions for common childhood vaccinations against measles, polio, and other infectious diseases, which are required to attend in-person public and private school in California. Four years earlier, he spearheaded a law to ban personal belief exemptions for childhood vaccines.
But under state law, personal belief exemptions must be allowed for any newly required childhood vaccine unless the legislature passes a new law banning them.
Newsom issued a directive in October 2021 adding covid vaccines to the list of required childhood immunizations — once federal officials fully authorize them for children. But because the legislature has not yet acted, Californians will be able to opt out by claiming the vaccines violate personal beliefs.
Pan and other Democratic lawmakers want to close that loophole this year, and potentially eliminate religious exemptions that health care workers can claim. They’re also considering requiring a broad swath of Californians to get covid vaccines to participate in much of daily life.
Lawmakers are still hashing out details but are expected to propose legislation requiring covid vaccines for people to be in workplaces, schools, and public venues like malls, museums, and restaurants — without allowing them to avoid the shots through exemptions. Pan, who is leaving the legislature after this year because of term limits, may also push legislation to hold tech companies more accountable for spreading misinformation on social media platforms.
“Do you have the right to be safe at school? Do people deserve to be safe at work? Are businesses responsible for creating an environment that won’t injure or harm you? This has to be part of the conversation,” said Pan, who was shoved by a protester near the Capitol in 2019.
Last year, Buffy Wicks, a Democratic Assembly member from Oakland, and Evan Low, a Democratic Assembly member from Campbell, tried but failed to muscle through legislation establishing covid vaccine mandates for workers and businesses. But the ongoing challenges of the pandemic have “reenergized” Democratic lawmakers this year, said state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), who is carrying legislation to lower the age at which someone can consent to a vaccine without parental permission from 18 to 12.
“It’s important that we continue to push for vaccine mandates the most aggressively we possibly can,” said Wicks, who faced death threats over her vaccine legislation last year. “We can’t let ourselves be held hostage by these right-wing conspiracy theorists who are perpetrating hate and violence.”
‘The Firestorm Is Here’
Anti-vaccine activists acknowledge they may not succeed at defeating new legislation but welcome state lawmakers’ attempts to impose stricter rules — they argue it helps them build a larger movement in California, on social media, and in other states.
“What they don’t realize is the point of these rallies and protests is to bring more people into the fold, from all around the country,” said Stefanie Fetzer, a chief organizer of the 2019 anti-vaccination demonstrations at the state Capitol. “Senator Pan galvanized a larger anti-vax movement that wouldn’t have happened without him.”
Scientists and health officials blame California’s stagnating covid vaccination rate largely on the anti-vaccine movement, which is peddling misinformation and lies. The share of Californians who are considered fully vaccinated is 69%, and booster shots are lagging — even though the state and local governments have plowed tens of millions of dollars into vaccination campaigns.
“What you see now is this movement being taken over by Republicans and this libertarian right-wing notion of individual rights and ‘get government off my back.’ They’re believing and spreading this misinformation even though it’s disproven,” said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “Trying to stop it is like trying to stop Niagara Falls.”
Vaccine opponents have also shut down government meetings and lobbed violent threats at officials backing mandates.
Joshua Coleman, who organized hundreds of protesters in 2019 under his group V Is for Vaccine, has held rallies in Sacramento this year, again targeting Pan with a 10-foot poster and his image smeared in red.
“There will be constant pressure,” Coleman said. “This is happening more and more all over the country, but we are building a movement out of California. Being forced to take a vaccine in order to participate in society is absolutely totalitarian.”
Vaccine supporters realize they must fight back and are launching a lobbying campaign, led by political heavyweights from Sacramento and Washington, D.C., to combat vaccine opponents with some of their own tactics.
“The firestorm is here. This is ground warfare that the anti-vax extremists are bringing, and I think we need to be able to match it,” said Crystal Strait, the former president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California who is leading the campaign under the group ProtectUS.
Campaign leaders are organizing students, parents, and pro-vaccine activists to counter anti-vaccination demonstrators in cities and counties across California and to debunk misinformation while giving state lawmakers political cover to enact tougher laws.
“We need to draw a really bold, bright line and let these extremists know that we will not be silent,” Strait said.
The campaign emerged quietly last year, sponsoring a new law to limit protests outside vaccination clinics — which has since been blocked in court — and will launch ground-game political efforts this year.
“The science is on our side, and there’s a silent majority on our side, but we’re being drowned out in public forums where these decisions are being made,” said Rose Kapolczynski, a longtime political consultant to former U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, who is working on the campaign. “We’re going to activate the pro-vaccine majority when policies are being considered at the state and local levels.”
Whither Newsom?
Newsom is also wading into the fray.
His administration has plowed $145 million into a campaign to increase covid vaccinations and fight misinformation, in part by monitoring social media posts and flagging vaccine myths to social media companies. The administration is also developing a pro-vaccine counternarrative based on the misinformation.
“We want to be proactive about what the truth is and put it out there while debunking misinformation,” said Dr. Mark Ghaly, secretary of the state’s Health and Human Services Agency.
More than half a dozen public health experts interviewed for this story said that vaccine mandates work and that Newsom can boost the state’s faltering vaccination rates by eliminating exemptions.
But since Newsom announced the covid vaccine mandate for schoolchildren, he has publicly promoted exemptions.
“The mandate we put in place for the state of California includes personal exemptions,” Newsom said during an appearance on “Good Morning America” in December. “There’s plenty of latitude for families to make decisions.”
Newsom has declined to say whether he would support legislation banning exemptions but said he’d work with lawmakers. “We can discuss the merits and demerits” of allowing exemptions, Newsom said this month. “We did what we felt was appropriate.”
Barbara Ferrer, the public health director for Los Angeles County, which has recorded nearly 28,000 covid deaths, more than a third of the state’s total, called on Newsom and state lawmakers to adopt mandates without exemptions.
“If you allow that, you may as well not have a vaccine mandate,” she said. “If you don’t want your child to get vaccinated, then your child doesn’t have to go to school. And you don’t have to go to a restaurant. I’m not trying to be mean to people. I’m just saying there are some things you shouldn’t be able to do if you’re not vaccinated.”
The latest occupational employment data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) indicated that there were over 2,986,000 registered nurses (RNs) employed in the country as of May 2020. Over 484,000 of those RN jobs were in the five Great Lakes states. BLS data revealed the Great Lakes region as a weak one for registered nurse pay, as no state in the region had an RN annual mean wage level that topped the national average. A closer look at BLS data from May 2020 reveals the following details about registered nurse pay in the Great Lakes region:
Registered Nurse Pay in the Great Lakes Region
State
# Employed
Annual Mean Wages
Wage Rank*
IL
127,450
$74,560
21st
IN
66,460
$67,490
39th
MI
97,820
$73,980
25th
OH
129,090
$69,750
33rd
WI
63,630
$74,760
20th
U.S.
2,986,500
$80,010
-------
(*) annual mean wage ranking among the 50 states and the District of Columbia
The most current occupational statistical data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports that, as of May 2020, nearly 221,000 physical therapists (PTs) were working in the United States. Just over 16,000 physical therapists were employed in the seven-state Great Plains region at that time. The Great Plains region was one of the weakest in the nation for PT pay, as the annual mean wage for physical therapists was below the national average in six of the seven states in the region. Moreover, four Great Plains states ranked among the ten states with the lowest annual mean wage levels in the nation for PTs. A closer examination of BLS data from May 2020 reveals the following state-level details about physical therapist pay in the Great Plains region:
Physical Therapist Pay in the Great Plains Region
State
# Employed
Annual Mean Wages
Wage Rank*
IA
2,150
$83,640
47th
KS
2,200
$91,850
17th
MN
4,360
$86,020
38th
MO
4,220
$84,660
43rd
NE
1,620
$86,850
34th
ND
640
$84,880
42nd
SD
860
$78,850
51st
U.S.
220,870
$91,680
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(*) annual mean wage ranking among the 50 states and the District of Columbia
As designated by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), a primary care health professional shortage area (HPSA) is a geographic area, population group, or facility where residents have inadequate access to basic medical care because too few primary care physicians service that population. As of December 31, 2021, more than 86.4 million Americans lived in HRSA designated primary care HPSAs. With nearly 28.7 million residents living in primary care shortage areas, the twelve-state Southeast accounted for just over 33% of the U.S. population who lived in primary care HPSAs as of 12/31/21. The HRSA estimates that to eliminate this shortage, Southeast region HPSAs would need over 4,600 additional primary care physicians. A deeper examination of 12/31/21 HRSA data reveals the following state-level view of the Southeast's primary care shortage:
The Southeast's Primary Care Shortage
State
(1) HPSAs
(2) Population
(3) Shortage
AL
104
2,286,895
301
AR
101
659,319
105
FL
279
6,582,652
1,561
GA
245
3,304,225
681
KY
192
1,459,320
202
LA
163
2,382,951
260
MS
158
1,829,836
284
NC
216
2,906,800
434
SC
101
1,989,344
207
TN
134
2,359,490
256
VA
131
2,150,191
216
WV
113
786,471
139
Region
1,937
28,697,494
4,646
U.S.
7,613
86,473,101
15,184
(1) Designated Geographic, Population Group and Facility HPSAs with a primary care shortage
(2) Population of designated HPSAs
(3) Primary Care practitioners needed to remove HPSA Designation
