The wages of peer recovery workers: underpaid, undervalued, and unjust

Abstract

ABSTRACT Peer-based recovery support services are evidence-based practices used to achieve long-term recovery. Fundamental to these services are peer recovery workers, who use their lived experience of long-term recovery to form trusting, supportive relationships with individuals initiating self-directed journeys to mental health or substance use recovery. However, peer recovery workers report low salaries and workplace environments that cause unnecessary stress, burnout, compassion fatigue, and suboptimal service provision. We compare mean state peer recovery worker wages with prevailing state living wages by utilizing a living wage calculator and assembling data on wage offers from a national job-posting platform in the US. Our results suggest significant wage insufficiency. Among single-worker households with children, the living wage exceeds mean peer wages in every state. We conclude with guidance to public health researchers and practitioners to address the social justice implications of wage insufficiency.