Moving Beyond Colas to Salary Parity for NYC's Nonprofit Human Service Workers

A new Robin Hood-funded report produced by the Center for New York City Affairs at The New School documents racial and gender pay inequities for the 80,000 plus nonprofit workers providing human services under city government contracts. This workforce includes many well-educated women of color working as social workers and counselors providing vital services to the City’s most vulnerable populations, yet they are egregiously underpaid relative to their education levels and their importance in creating a New York City that works for all. These inequities result directly from City contracting processes that consistently underfunds nonprofit service providers. This report provides a blueprint for the City to establish salary parity for its contracted human services workforce by aligning pay for human services workers with City agency job titles and pay levels to ensure parity with public sector employees performing comparable work.