St. Croix Hospice, a portfolio company of the private equity firm H.I.G. Capital, has increased its minimum pay for all full-time positions at the agency to $20-per-hour effective Oct. 10.
The increase applies to both clinical and back-office staff. St. Croix currently services about 2,700 patients from more than 50 locations in Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska and Wisconsin.
“The St. Croix Hospice caregivers provide amazing care and work very hard,” CEO Heath Bartness told Hospice News. “This is compensation that reflects the care and work.”
The wage increase comes at a time when long-standing staffing shortages are reaching new heights amid rising demand. Hospice providers are competing in smaller pools for increasingly limited resources.
St. Croix’s $20-per-hour threshold exceeds any state or federally mandated minimum wage. The proposed federal Raise the Wage Act of 2021 died in committee earlier this year, and an executive order from President Biden raising the wage to $15 only applies to government contractors.
At the local level, the City of Chicago raised its minimum wage to $15 effective July 1.
The minimum wage went up in 24 states during 2021, though most did not reach the $15 threshold that many proponents of these hikes have called for, according to the National Council for State Legislatures (NCSL).
At least 34 states are mulling bills that would increase the minimum wage. Among those, 29 states are proposing an incremental increase to $15 an hour or more, NCSL reported. California currently has the highest among the states at $14-per-hour for large employers. The rate for smaller businesses in California is $13.
“St. Croix Hospice, like all employers, and certainly health care providers has experienced some tightening of the labor market,” Stephen Phenneger, the company’s president and CFO, said. “We are fortunate to have solid retention and recruiting in place which has allowed us to not only continue to provide high quality care, but also expand to serve more communities.”
Companies featured in this article:
