NASW Social Work Talks - EP25: Social Work Salaries

Episode Date: March 5, 2019

Michael Sinclair, MSW, PhD, assistant professor at Morgan State University School of Social Work, often gets questions about pay from his students. Dr. Sinclair talks to us about why the social work pay landscape looks the way it does, and what can be done to change that. This is the first in our series of episodes about social work salaries as part of Social Work Month 2019. See show notes for resources. And if you enjoyed this episode, please leave us review on iTunes!

Welcome to Social Work Talks. I'm your host, Greg Wright. Social work is rewarding and life-affirming work. Still, despite the invaluable services that social workers do, pay levels in social work tend to lag behind that of other helping professions, such as nursing and teaching. This Social Work Month, we are having a conversation about this pay issue. Our first guest is Dr. Michael Sinclair, a social work professor at Morgan State University in Maryland.

Dr. Sinclair has long been interested in the issue of social work salaries and often gets questions about pay from his students. Dr. Sinclair was also the New Jersey State Coordinator for Social Work PRM, a nationwide social work staffing company. Dr. Sinclair is here to talk about why the social work pay landscape looks the way it does and what can be done to improve it. Welcome to Social Work Talks, Dr. Sinclair. Thank you. Thank you for having me, Greg. How did you first get interested in the issue of social work, salaries, compensation, etc.? Quite naturally, I'm a social worker and I have a self-interest in salaries in terms of the social work profession and also my students that are coming out. But primarily, maybe about 15 years ago, I was working for a professional social work agency where we hired social workers across the state of New Jersey.

And what I found to be very interesting, depending on the field of practices, the salaries were distinctively different. So it really intrigued me that in some practices of social work, the salaries could be double, if not triple, other fields of practice. And I thought that was an area of interest that we need to, as social workers, pay more attention to. Yes, so which areas then actually pay more than, say, other areas? If you take a look at EAP social work as an area of practice, you find that the pays are generally higher. You find that social workers that are in administrative practice, like if they're executive directors of community-based organizations, their pay is generally higher. But social workers that are working with fragile populations, such as the aging and developmentally disabled, their pay is abysmal. And they may have the same degree as a social worker who is a CEO of a community-based agency.

Over 70% of social workers are women. Is that also a factor for the fact that they, on average, earn less than a lot of other professions do? Absolutely. The feminization of social work is one of the factors that have the salaries lower than they ought to be. And we as social workers' profession have advocated for women to have equal pay to men. The issue that compounds that and complicates that is social worker is what I consider a chameleon of careers. We have social workers in a variety of different practice settings. and the fact that social workers who are working in a public school setting could be a school social worker. And they align themselves with the academic pay scale.

And social workers that are working in a hospital setting align themselves with the medical pay scale. And very rarely do we find social workers that advocate for other social workers in the different fields. Now, what makes that different? we've taken a look at education and nursing as comparative professions but most of the nurses that we have interviewed they work within hospitals or medical settings you know some may work in schools some may work in in detention centers but they work primarily in hospitals we

don't have that in social work there is no primary occupation in social work or primary field of practice. So you'll find social workers working in nursing homes, hospitals. You'll find social workers working in jails. You'll find social workers doing private practice. You'll find social workers that are working in airports. So we don't have that one concentrated field of practice where a majority of our social workers work. So if social workers were in a single place, like a single service type agency, do you think that they would be better able to actually go out after a higher pay level? Yeah. I'm not suggesting that they be in a single agency. However, I am suggesting that if we recognize that the education that we have transcends fields of practice. So if

you're working as a social worker, you know, hypothetically you're working in a hospital setting and you have a an alignment or a connection with social workers that are working in a private practice in the community i see it as that we're different fingers on the same hand so whatever field of practice you're working on we still have the same skill sets you know we still have the same education and i think that if we could start communicating to one another and advocating for one another, I think that we can argue for better salaries across the board. The NASW is in a prime position to help social workers across the board. They're the ones, they're the glue that really connects social workers in different fields of practices in one concentrated area.

I think that, you know, putting money around research and advocacy and, you know, to help social workers understand that, you know, when someone graduates from their MSW program from UPenn or Columbia University and they're offered $29,000 as a starting salary, it's not only an insult to that person, it's an insult to the profession and the education. And so the NASW needs to step in. You know, I believe that the collective bargaining power of the NASW could advocate saying, listen, we provide essential skills for the community and society. We need to be compensated adequately. And although a lot of social workers go into the field because they want to make a difference and they want to make a change, I think that no other profession has to make that sacrifice. You do not have to be a martyr to become a social worker.

I don't see, and I have a younger brother who's a lawyer, I don't see people going into law firms who want to make a difference saying that we're not going to give you billable hours. Exactly. They feel quite comfortable in saying, yeah, we want to make a difference. We want to change laws and legislation, but we're going to charge you adequate people there. There are NASW chapters that advocate on a state level. For instance, our New York chapter set a livable wage for a social worker.

So if you're a social worker, you are interviewed, and they offer you a job, you can actually put forward, look, this is a livable wage. I'm from New York, and I'm from New York City, and I was part of the New York City chapter. Natural caveat is New York City is a very expensive place to live. I don't think that the salary scale for New York City should be similar to what's happening in Mississippi, rural Mississippi. Of course, it's going to be different, but I think that we should have some communication because, again, if I'm graduating from a school of social work like Columbia University, And I have a $75,000 loan that's taken. When I go to Mississippi to live, I still have a $75,000 loan.

They're not going to say, well, you know, that was New York City prices. You know, Sallie Mae still wants their money. So I do think on a national level, we should have a research across the board, across the nation. And we should say in these major metropolitan areas or these states, this is what we expect to be an entry-level salary, and this is what we expect for a seasoned social worker. And again, I think that's important to have those two separate scales because if you're working in the fields for 20 years and because of the budgets and the budget cuts, you haven't made any substantial increase to your salary, then you're actually losing money. So NASW would be in a prime position to help push forth that sort of research, you know, state by state, city by city, region by region, and have some expectations that you can then inform academia.

And you could tell students, you know, if you're coming out of school and you're moving to Georgia, you can expect this salary. That's how you set up your family. that's how you set up your lifestyle and your career, you could say, well, if you're moving into Utah, you could expect this salary as a social worker. What about like having more of a public relations type campaign? Absolutely. And I can't underscore that anymore. I think that we have done a tepid, I'm going to use that word very gingerly, a tepid response to marketing in our profession. It's somewhat shameful that a profession like social work has been

around for over a century. You can ask people, what do social workers do? And you'll get ten different responses from ten different people. We need to have a PR campaign. Not only commercials, because I know they do that in Great Britain, but when social work is depicted in movies you know we need somebody to say this is the valuable work that social workers do you know there's there's a lot of um television shows that depict firemen policemen fbi hospital work but where are social workers in that you know we need to have a presence and we need to say that you know we are a valuable profession so i think that um again nasw in collaboration with council of Social Work Education or ACSW or NABSW or Society for Social Work Leadership in Healthcare.

We all need to, you know, wrap our arms around this and have a marketing campaign so that it informs the public. How else will we get young people who are coming through academia to say, I want to be a social worker. I want to make a difference. You know, we need to have that public campaign. Sometimes we do, you know, local chapters have done it. I know they've done it in Canada but it's not it's not a national campaign we need to have a commercial you know I could envision a commercial during the Super Bowl you know I know that expense expensive but we need to have a national campaign much like what the nurses are doing we don't need to reinvent the wheel the nurses are doing it with the endorsement of Johnson and Johnson we need a national campaign

where people are given an idea of the value of the social work profession. And I think that will increase enrollment in social workers, but it will also give social workers pride, and more importantly, when society needs a social worker, they know who to call. You are a professor now, so you see a lot of students every semester. Is salary a big concern for them? Yes, it is. Working at the HBCU, we have a lot of students that are first-generation college students.

We have a lot of students who are paying their way through college as they go. So they're paying tuition as they work. For those students who are taking out loans, they're like, am I going to get my money back? A lot of the media has been centered around, oh, you need to go into technology or STEM. That's where the money is. If you're going to get money, there is money to be made in social work. And we as social work professors are living examples of that. However, you need to be very clear on why you're coming into the profession.

Now, I don't think that one discounts the other. Just because you value the profession in terms of you want to provide aid and assistance to humanity, that doesn't mean you have to take the oath of poverty. This is not clergy, you know, and we have to help students wrap their mind around what the possibilities are. And sometimes the limitations are within their imagination. And I say the limitations are within their imagination. you can be quite lucrative as a social worker if you apply yourself to new areas of practice. Entering the corporate world as a social worker and displaying and marketing your skill sets.

Hypothetically, I was asked by one colleague of mine who worked for a private corporation, and they said they needed someone to run groups to do their test products. I said, well, why not a social worker? And they were like, social workers run groups? I was like, yeah. We didn't know that that was part of their skill sets. So, you know, telling our students that you do have some skill sets that are valuable for the non-for-profit, but also for the for-profit will increase their earning potential.

This is a big, complex issue. Are you optimistic that there is a solution for it and that social workers in the long run will end up being appreciated more? Yes, and I think that that solution lies within us as a profession. We cannot outsource our respect to psychology, sociology, or any other discipline. We have to advocate for ourselves. our challenge is we have been wonderful advocates for our clientele we have been wonderful advocates for those who are impoverished and disenfranchised or those who are oppressed we have been horrible advocates for ourselves and i think that when we come to the to the realization that it's not

the antithesis of a social worker to ask for a fair wage we have to model that type of behavior if we're asking our clients to do that so i think that we i feel optimistic that we are at that point that we could ask for a fair wage i think that we need the support of the collective bargaining power of associations that connect social workers across the state and across the country something like the nasw would would really be um an asset to actually pull together the resources that we do have and to help us galvanize as one collective group. Thank you very much for being our guest and thank you sir. Thank you for having me. You have been listening to NASW Social Work Talks, a production of the National Association of Social Workers. We encourage you to visit NASW's

website for more information about our efforts to enhance the professional growth and development of our members, to create and maintain professional standards, and to advance sound social policies. You can learn more at www.socialworkers.org. And don't forget to subscribe to NASW Social Work Talks wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks again for joining us. We look forward to seeing you next episode.