This report documents the troubling racial and gender pay inequities that confront the 80,000 plus nonprofit workers providing human services under New York 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. Unlike market-driven industries, pay for nonprofit human services workers is determined entirely by City budget and procurement policies that prioritize cost cutting over fair compensation. Nonprofits are forced to accept underfunded contracts, perpetuating a cycle of inadequate wages and limited benefits. While recent actions, such as the 2019 salary parity agreement in early childhood education and the 2024 cost-of-living (COLA) increases, represent progress, substantial compensation disparities remain.

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. The City’s direct workforce is covered by long-standing collective bargaining agreements that explicitly compensate workers based on level of education and experience on the job. Once salary parity on a job title basis is achieved, City human services contracts should include automatic adjustments based on city-wide collective bargaining increases and build in future fringe benefit increases to reach comparability with City employees. More broadly, the City needs to incorporate racial and gender equity considerations into the City’s budgeting and procurement policies, consistent with the principles of the 2022 racial and gender equity amendments to the City Charter.