Promoting Staff Financial Well-Being in Human Service Organizations: The Role of Pay, Benefits, and Working Conditions

Many U.S. workers struggle with financial challenges. Human service organizations (HSOs) can consider ways to better promote financial well-being among staff, especially lower-wage, frontline workers. In addition to raising pay, HSOs can improve benefits and working conditions in ways that will meaningfully affect staff's financial well-being, such as offering wage-tiered health insurance premiums, financial counseling, access to public benefits, and giving staff more control over their schedules. Doing so will help HSOs strengthen their commitments to social and economic justice, yet financial challenges among nonprofit HSOs – especially those that are minority-led and/or -serving – require changes in public policies.