40. Is Building Wealth as a Social Worker Against the Code of Ethics?

Taylor Gilbert (00:00)
Hello everyone, welcome back to the Social Work 12 podcast. Taylor and Faith here. And oh man, we have quite an episode.
Faith Voss (00:09)
We do, we do.
Taylor Gilbert (00:13)
We're
fired up. feel like we're, you know, it doesn't happen often, but sometimes people just piss us off. I guess we'll just say. So yeah, we're talking about building wealth as social workers and is that against the code of ethics? And obviously we're not like ethicists, you know, like this is our personal opinion. ⁓
Faith Voss (00:19)
Oof. This is hot.
Let's be clear. Yeah.
Taylor Gilbert (00:40)
Like, yeah, just want to put
that out there. yeah, I feel like this episode is, this is why we even have this podcast. This is why I even started having these conversations because this is so important to me and this is so important to us for us to like empower workers, you know? So, all right, why are we even having this conversation? ⁓
Faith Voss (00:57)
Yeah.
Taylor Gilbert (01:06)
Well, I think it was two episodes ago, two or three episodes ago, we released the episode with Liz Ray. She is the therapist in Georgia who made $224,000 in 2025, which super exciting, very cool. If you haven't checked that episode out, go do that. I just really appreciated her, I don't know, just her transparency, but also I just love the way that she.
had structured her practice and you know, she's really like does a lot to give back to the community and all those things. But some people were not very happy with the fact that I was talking about these salaries and that someone made that much money in social work. So a couple of the comments I have pulled up that I think is kind of influencing our rage today.
Faith Voss (02:03)
Yeah.
Taylor Gilbert (02:10)
is... Whoa! Okay. First
person said, it's kind of antithetical to the social work ethics to have made this much wealth in revenue, but pop off, IG. And I said, where in the social work ethics does it say we can't make good money as social workers? It doesn't. So they said, it isn't explicitly stated, of course, but it gave me the ability to read things contextually.
It's understood in liberatory practice that wealth is usually gained at the expense of people who cannot afford to gain. But again, if your argument is to consider that literally rather than systematically, then there's not much else I can say. ⁓ So there's that. Let's see. Someone just blankly commented social work to wealth question mark with like, eye roll emoji. And I said, what's the issue? He said, tell me more.
Faith Voss (02:58)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Tell me more.
Taylor Gilbert (03:05)
The issue is it could be more insensitive, insulting, and tone deaf, especially towards the people who you supposedly work with. I said, how is it insulting or insensitive? He said, if you can't see that without it being spelled out for you, your privilege is worse than I thought. Shameful. Okay. Yeah, and this last person essentially was like, it literally says in the code of ethics that our responsibility is to those who are oppressed and living in poverty.
Faith Voss (03:25)
Ooh.
Taylor Gilbert (03:35)
And then she had to quote the little sentence, the primary mission of social work professions is to enhance human wellbeing and to help the basic needs of all people with particular attention to the needs and empowerment of people who are vulnerable, oppressed, and living in poverty.
Faith Voss (03:50)
Social workers are vulnerable, oppressed, and living in poverty. Just want to say that. Not all social workers, but some. ⁓
Taylor Gilbert (03:54)
Just, yeah, just a reminder that...
But that is also us.
Yes. Yes. They said, if making money is that important to you, don't be a social worker, be a mental health counselor, be a psychologist.
Faith Voss (04:10)
Okay, mental health counselors are social workers, but sorry. Anyways, I'm just gonna leave that.
Taylor Gilbert (04:17)
And just the fact that like she just wants to throw them under the bus like they you know they don't have any ethics or values it's like if you care about money then oh you should just be a psychologist then.
Faith Voss (04:21)
No. ⁓
You should...
I'm like, wow, okay. Okay.
Taylor Gilbert (04:32)
so that's where this is all coming from. ⁓
Faith Voss (04:37)
Yeah,
and I'll just jump in really quick. Whenever you talk about a taboo topic, you're going to get positive feedback. You're also going get negative feedback. Taylor and I are, you know, we care deeply about this issue. So of course, we want to address this head on because I think if we don't, ⁓ then, you know, we run the risk of having the wrong interpretation of what we're doing out there. And
We care a ton about this and so we want to be clear about our intentions and also why this is important to change this narrative and this is exactly what we're trying to change. Exactly what's in this comments. Uh-huh. This is exactly what we want to change. This is the culture we're talking about needs to change.
Taylor Gilbert (05:15)
This is exactly what we need. Yeah.
Yes,
yes. And like you said earlier, it's like the systems that are oppressing people who are powerless and poor and vulnerable, like those are also, that's women and social work is majority women. So that's a fact. We know that. ⁓ I'm gonna go into a little bit of, go ahead.
Faith Voss (05:40)
majority women.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, no, I was just gonna say, like, I looked up a study on that and in 2020, I mean, I'm surprised we don't have more updated numbers, but 89 % of social workers were women. 89 % were women and 22 % were black women. So, I mean, that's, you know, important to recognize. Yeah, yeah.
Taylor Gilbert (05:59)
Jeez.
No, absolutely.
And we, we, feel like we all know it's like, if you're listening to this podcast, you're like, yeah, I get it. You know, I'm preaching the choir here, but I'm going to say it anyways, that there's the wage gap, you know, like I'm going to just share some quick little money history facts. Like prior to the 1974, women could not even open a bank account or credit card or get a home loan without the permission of their husband. That is
That is wild.
Faith Voss (06:37)
Like, that's insane.
Taylor Gilbert (06:40)
That's 52 years ago. That's daddy. Like, so, you know, we know that for every dollar a man makes, woman makes 85 cents. ⁓ It's 61 cents for black women, 75 cents for white women. Women on average retire with two thirds the money that men do. They're like 80 % more likely to face poverty and retirement.
Faith Voss (06:57)
Wow.
Taylor Gilbert (07:06)
Black women have the most educational debt. Like, this is nationally a month, this is an issue. ⁓ And just because we have our values and, you know, we're altruistic or whatever as social workers doesn't mean that we're not affected by this money and like financial conversation. ⁓ So, before we kind of like get into more of our commentary, I just want to explain.
Faith Voss (07:10)
Mm.
Yeah, yeah.
Taylor Gilbert (07:36)
Like, well, one thing that someone had mentioned in the comments was, think she said, building this much or making this much wealth and revenue is against the code of ethics. know, like building this much wealth and revenue and wealth and business revenue are not the same thing. Like I can make $900,000. I can make a million dollars, but that doesn't mean I'm wealthy.
because I have expenses, like who knows, maybe after I make all of that money, I still have more expenses than the amount of money that I made. So wealth is the total value of all the things that you own, your assets, cash, real estate, investment, stocks, whatever, minus your debts, your liabilities. So I just wanted to clear that up, just because someone made.
$224,000 doesn't mean they're wealthy. And if you follow Liz specifically, she has debt and she talks about the process of her and her partner trying to pay off that debt. And so yeah, maybe she did make $224,000. I don't know all the details of like her, you know, her financial, her financial situation, but she actually might not have wealth. She might have like a negative net worth.
Faith Voss (08:36)
Yeah.
Taylor Gilbert (09:01)
because she has debt. ⁓ So I just wanted to help everyone kind of like conceptualize that and understand that. ⁓
Faith Voss (09:10)
Yeah, I think this might be, I was gonna kind of talk about this later, but I think that this might be a good spot to kind of jump in. I think there's like this view out there that money and wealth is bad. Like having money and having wealth is bad and that it's actually, what I think people are saying is it's immoral.
Taylor Gilbert (09:12)
Go ahead.
Yeah.
Faith Voss (09:33)
What we're talking about is morality. It's immoral. Money is immoral. Money is bad. actually, money is not bad. It's how you use money that makes it immoral and bad. And so I think using money to pay social workers is not immoral. Not bad. It's a good use of money. And so I think this idea that wealth is bad, money is bad, no.
Taylor Gilbert (09:41)
Right. Right.
Faith Voss (09:59)
It's how it's being used and it's how you, yeah, how you use it. And so I think that's important to recognize too because we don't have to justify or defend.
Taylor Gilbert (10:01)
Yes.
Faith Voss (10:14)
wealth. Like I feel like we don't need to do that. And I think often, I mean, this is just getting into issues of injustice. Wealth is in the wrong hands, in my view, in the larger society. And so I think that's because we undervalue emotional labor, we undervalue women, and women tend to be in jobs where we are caring for others, and we are engaging in our emotions and emotional labor deserves to be compensated. And it's
Taylor Gilbert (10:15)
No. No.
Absolutely.
Faith Voss (10:44)
not.
Taylor Gilbert (10:44)
And who benefits from this narrative that money is... You know, it's not us. People go like the personal finance conversation, the how to build wealth, all of that has been gate kept in these spaces for a reason. ⁓ And so it's like, it's the, I feel like the powers that be, you know, it's...
Faith Voss (11:13)
Yes.
Taylor Gilbert (11:13)
It's fine for them to build wealth and accumulate it, but ⁓ there's this like trickle down narrative that it's like, if you want money, that you're a bad person, you know, and that's the press that keeps us from not wanting to advocate for our staff, not wanting to negotiate our salaries, ⁓ not trying to grow our wealth for our communities and our families. it's just like, it's, it feels so
Faith Voss (11:27)
Yeah.
Taylor Gilbert (11:44)
wild that I don't know that we even have to like have this conversation that's
Faith Voss (11:48)
That was one of
the things I had at the top of my list. I like, to be honest, I can't believe we even have to have this conversation. I can't believe we even have to do this. And it's so disheartening that like social workers are policing ourselves, right? It's so disheartening that we're doing this to ourselves. This isn't even like the external society, yes, is doing this, but it's also us doing it to ourselves because we've bought into this ideology. It's seeped into us too. It's yeah. And it's like, okay, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Taylor Gilbert (12:06)
Yeah.
We've bought into it. Totally.
Faith Voss (12:18)
When you are making these comments, think about what you're actually saying.
Taylor Gilbert (12:24)
And yeah, what you're actually
saying, what you're actually doing to our collective group, ⁓ like that is not how we reach where we want to, you know? why are we oppressing ourselves? Why are we financially oppressing ourselves? Which it's wild because I think that we are so, we're so good at, you know, acknowledging systematic, like, you know.
Faith Voss (12:39)
And I don't understand it.
Taylor Gilbert (12:53)
systemic oppressive systems and calling that out. But it's all external, I think. And I think we need to have more conversation. We need to do a better job of looking inward and being critical of our profession. I think that's something that we actually don't do enough. We're really good at being critical of the healthcare system and the child welfare system and all these systems.
Faith Voss (13:01)
Mmm.
Mm-hmm.
Taylor Gilbert (13:23)
When we're looking at the social work system, there's not much critique there or, ⁓ I don't know, space for us to really challenge, you know, these narrative.
Faith Voss (13:36)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah, and I think that that's what this is.
we are doing right now is having those conversations, kind of saying some of this out loud. And I think we're social workers are also in broken healthcare systems are also in broken education systems. are humans with needs. And like our clients are struggling, but also we're humans with needs who are struggling to like social workers sometimes need social workers to help them with their life.
Taylor Gilbert (13:58)
Yeah.
Totally. I mean, right, that's us, right? We're, we
are the social workers. We're social workers right now. Like, yo, we got you. We're your social worker, okay? We're fighting for you. We're advocating for you.
Faith Voss (14:15)
Social workers!
Taylor Gilbert (14:24)
I think one thing I want to say is, you know, I think social work to wealth, that name, it's kind of funny because I didn't really mean for it to be provocative. ⁓ But when I thought of it, was me going through my own money journey and just my desire to have wealth and be wealthy. And what did that mean? Yes, want to have money.
Faith Voss (14:33)
Hmm.
Taylor Gilbert (14:54)
but it also meant like me just having, I don't know, just like overall wellbeing, physical health, like knowledge, like, you know, we talk about wealth of knowledge and all of that. Like this is more the wealth. It is largely about money, yes, and it's also just about us being holistically like healthy and wealthy, you know? And so I just like,
Yeah, it's really interesting that people, you know, and I have gotten other comments like this in the past where it's like, oh, social work to wealth, okay. It's like, clearly you haven't gone on my website to see like what our mission is. Because it is clearly stated there that, I can read it like, we believe that wealth isn't just about money, it's about abundance of knowledge, fulfillment, well-being. Our mission is to break down the financial and career barriers that many social workers face.
Faith Voss (15:38)
No. Right. Right.
Taylor Gilbert (15:53)
empowering them through education, support and advocacy. We envision a future where social workers are not only recognized, but also compensated fairly for their invaluable contributions. And we believe that by providing social workers with the necessary tools and resources, they can wholeheartedly pursue their passion for helping others without compromising their well-being. When social workers are thriving, they're equipped to make a lasting impact on their communities, maintain their well-being and lead rich lives. Like that's
That's what all this is about. You know, there's no, I feel like people just assume that we're just like, yeah, exploit your clients. and like, I don't know. I don't know. It's just, it's, it's also annoying because there's people are making these assumptions, which we are, we, we are taught not to do, but I'm like, if you just go to my website, you can read a little bit more about my, me.
Faith Voss (16:24)
Yep, yep.
Taylor Gilbert (16:52)
my journey, paying off debt, where this all came from, and what our mission is, which is essentially to advance our profession.
Faith Voss (16:53)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's for all of us. And it's to share information that historically has been shared with...
Taylor Gilbert (17:04)
This is for all of us.
Faith Voss (17:11)
white males. Like we're no longer gonna, you know, gatekeep. I don't even know if we're gatekeeping, but like, I don't know, there's like the secrecy around how do you build wealth? Like, how do you do that? Or how do you actually just like negotiate your salary? You know, just like basic budgeting as well. And I think your
Taylor Gilbert (17:13)
the
Yes.
Faith Voss (17:33)
you know, trying to provide education on that, which is incredible to a population that desperately needs it. So I think, yeah, I think that that makes a ton of sense. So.
Taylor Gilbert (17:45)
I'm not talking about becoming a billionaire, like having an a large enough salary to pay off the debt that you want to care for yourself and your family. Donate to the communities and causes you believe in, you know. Leave a toxic job or relationship because you have savings. Say no to exploitive employers. Donate to political campaigns, grassroots organizations. Like when we have money, we can change the world.
Faith Voss (18:02)
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. is power. Money is power. It can be used in healthy ways to help oppressed individuals, marginalized individuals, people on the fringe, to get more access to care, help, and also to get, yeah, to have more power. And so I think, yeah, I think that's all super important. I think we should get into this issue of is, you know,
Taylor Gilbert (18:14)
Like that's money is power. Money is power.
Yeah.
Faith Voss (18:41)
Is this against the code of ethics? Do you wanna talk a little bit about like who we reached out to and what, yeah.
Taylor Gilbert (18:43)
Yeah.
Yeah. We
reached out to our friend of the pod, Dr. Reamer. I feel like, yes, he's just, love that guy.
Faith Voss (18:53)
Dr. Reamer!
We like
Dr. Ramer. Yeah.
Taylor Gilbert (19:05)
Well, Dr. Reamer,
he's very, very cool, interesting. If you're new to this podcast, Dr. Reamer, he is on episode 28. We talked with him about AI ⁓ and ethics around AI, but he also led the task force that wrote the code of ethics. ⁓ And so I decided to email him and say,
This is what's happening right now. I put out this episode about this social worker making $224,000. These are some of the comments that I've received. I'm curious about your opinion about this because like, if any, if I'm going to ask anyone, he's, he's the guy, right? Like, he's the guy. I really love in his email that he was, he said, like, this is a conversation that our profession genuinely needs. Like I was like, ⁓
Faith Voss (19:47)
He's the guy. Yeah.
Yes Yes
Taylor Gilbert (19:59)
I that. appreciate that.
Okay, I think I just want to read a little piece of what he said. He said that there is no ethical standard that caps income or frames financial well-being as inherently problematic. At the same time, the Code's mission statement clearly emphasizes the profession's core commitment to serving people who are vulnerable, oppressed, and living in poverty.
He said, I wrote that statement in my role as task force chair. Okay. Flex. Like, by the way, I wrote that.
Faith Voss (20:28)
Alright, alright, alright!
Thank you. Okay, I'm glad we asked.
Taylor Gilbert (20:41)
He said, in my opinion, that foundational value.
is essential context for how we think about income, career choices, and professional identity. ultimately, I mean, I think what's interesting is he said, ultimately, the key ethical question is one of motive and orientation. Is the social worker primarily driven by a commitment to serve vulnerable populations with financial success as a byproduct of expertise and impact? Or is the primary aim the accumulation of wealth? The former is consistent with social work values. Even if it results in high income, I think the latter raises more significant ethical
concerns, ⁓ which is interesting. What was your takeaway from his email?
Faith Voss (21:23)
I think the part that stood out for me in his email is this this part and I'll just read it really quick. It says, in my view, where the ethical tension arises is not in income itself, which I think he agrees that like money and income is not the problem. ⁓ It's the intention and priorities. If a social works principle or primary goal is the pursuit of wealth or affluence, that focus would be difficult to reconcile with the profession's core values, which
center on service, social justice, and dignity and worth of all people. And when I read that, I just kept coming back to this thought of it's about your intentions. It's about your internal subjective reasoning for why you are doing the work you're doing.
We are going to have people in the profession who are doing this for money to just build wealth. And we are going to have people who are doing this because they believe in service, social justice, dignity, and worth of all people. And so just because we are going to have people in the profession, like we are going to have people who are just in it for the money. For sure. Just like you are, just like it's true for all different parts of our world.
Taylor Gilbert (22:22)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Faith Voss (22:43)
that doesn't mean we need to hold back all social workers' salaries and career growth. And just because of a few doesn't mean we punish everybody else. Do know what I mean? And I think ⁓ that's not a winning argument for me. I'm not similar to the same situation where some graduate programs choose to not pay interns or allow them to be paid for their internship because everybody isn't being paid. And I just don't think that that
Taylor Gilbert (22:53)
Right, yeah.
Right.
Faith Voss (23:13)
is the way forward. think the way forward and I think most interns would be like
Hey, I'd rather have something or a shot at something than nothing. Like we live in an expensive world and I think we live in a different time where there isn't as much safety net within our families, within our communities, within society at large, in our government. And so people very much have to look out for themselves. ⁓ so I think that that while he says it totally makes sense, I totally agree. I think
Taylor Gilbert (23:25)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Faith Voss (23:48)
How do you regulate that? How do you get into someone's morals and values and kind of assess their subjective view and what they're choosing to do? I think that's very difficult. You can't. I think you just have to say the majority of social workers are in this for the right reasons. I believe that to be true. And so they should be compensated.
Taylor Gilbert (23:54)
Right, thank you.
That's great. Totally. It's like if I wanted to
pursue money, if I wanted to build as, I don't know, as much money as possible, like, I don't, this, yeah, it just feels, it just, it doesn't make sense. Cause I'm like, the reason why most of us are doing this is because we believe in this, the work and.
The money can be a byproduct of it. just because I do believe in social work and I love being a social worker, just because I also want to make money doesn't mean that all of my ethics and values are just out of the window.
Faith Voss (24:36)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Taylor Gilbert (24:47)
It's just wild.
And I appreciate that at the end he said like financial wellness, sustainability and ethical income are not inherently at odds with our values and in many cases, they are necessary to support long term effective practice. The challenge for our profession is to hold both truths, the commitment to social justice and access, along with realistic understanding of compensation, sustainability and professional growth. think
Faith Voss (24:56)
Yes.
Yes.
Taylor Gilbert (25:15)
That is, he totally does. For us to try to ignore that financial wellness is not, is not directly, like doesn't directly impact our ability to just, our, just our humanness, us and our stress, stress levels, our ability, the way we practice, like financial stress is.
Faith Voss (25:15)
He gets it.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, he's really gets it.
Taylor Gilbert (25:44)
my gosh, that's hard. sure many of us have felt it, right? You know how stressful it is.
Faith Voss (25:45)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
And it fuels, it fuels mental health issues. It fuels divorce. It fuels so many problematic things in our lives when finances are, when we're struggling with financial wellness or finances in general. Like it, it is a huge problem. So it's kind of a no brainer.
Taylor Gilbert (26:13)
And also we can all say, we see the impact in the communities that we serve, like the clients that we work with, ⁓ when money is stressful, when money is a struggle. We see it firsthand.
Faith Voss (26:28)
Yeah,
yeah, yeah, right. So let's just like, yeah, look at ourselves and look at our own profession, right? And like do that really good work that we do all the time with our clients. We constantly walk the line. ⁓
on different moral issues, ethical issues with our clients, we can walk this line too, where it's like, hey, it's about intention. like, yeah, we don't wanna be making money off of really vulnerable populations, but we also need to recognize that we are a vulnerable population. We are, we're vulnerable and we are exploited at times. And I think that our passion is exploited and our labor is exploited and our care
Taylor Gilbert (26:49)
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
on it.
Hmm. ⁓
Faith Voss (27:14)
for other humans is exploited. It just is.
Taylor Gilbert (27:18)
That's the truth.
Faith Voss (27:19)
Yeah, and I think one thing that really our profession struggles with, and I remember learning about this obviously in grad school, hey, there are things we learned in grad school. Like this is a good thing. I know, I feel like we went through a really good grad program. I don't want to say we didn't. Like we did, grad schools are crushing it. ⁓ We kind of say that sometimes. This isn't what you learn in grad school. But this is something I did learn, which is like the savior complex. And so we struggle with that as a profession. And I'll just read the definition of the savior complex, which is a cyclical.
Taylor Gilbert (27:28)
Yeah.
Faith Voss (27:49)
construct where an individual feels a compulsive, often unconscious, need to fix or rescue others, sacrificing their own needs in the process. We should not be sacrificing our need for money to survive, right? That is a savior complex.
Taylor Gilbert (28:02)
Mmm!
is a
completely a savior complex. Yeah, and it is so rampant that we like martyr ourselves financially to prove our commitment. ⁓ Yesterday, I found this article, I'll link it in the show notes. ⁓ That was titled the obligation of white women dismantling white supremacy, culture and social work education. And
Faith Voss (28:18)
It is everywhere.
Hmm.
Taylor Gilbert (28:41)
essentially it was saying, you know, we all know like the white savior complex is popularized in media. This concept of like white women, often the saviors of downtrodden black, brown and other people of color. ⁓ And so yeah, like that feels, it just feels so, so.
Faith Voss (28:53)
Yep.
Gross, I'm sorry. It feels gross.
I'm like, I feel grossed out by that. I feel grossed out. I get, I gotta be completely honest. I feel grossed out by our history. I don't like it. I really don't like our history. And I don't, I have something else to say about this. I have a lot to say. I'm trying to be like, okay, whoo. But.
Taylor Gilbert (29:12)
Totally.
Yeah. Yeah.
Faith Voss (29:25)
We, I remember also talking about this with people in the profession or whatever. It's like, we need to be more diverse. Let's be more diverse. Let's like attract diversity. Yet what that feels like to me when we don't pay is let's keep the marginalized helping the marginalized. Let's keep people, the poor helping the poor. Let's, you know, like that sounds like injustice to me and oppressing people. I don't agree with that at all.
Taylor Gilbert (29:43)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Faith Voss (29:55)
I as our profession becomes more diverse, our income should go up, up, up, up. Not that like, just forget about, yeah. So I'll just leave it at that. I guess. It just feels wonky. Like let's make our profession more diverse and then let's not pay them. What?
Taylor Gilbert (30:00)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
It really does. It really does. think that...
right. like when you when you say it like that
it's like ⁓ that no that's not
Faith Voss (30:21)
And then we're gonna
call it unethical. We're gonna make you feel shame for asking, for advocating for decent wages. We're gonna actually call it unethical and make you feel like shit about it. I just find that disgusting. I'm sorry, I'm getting a little intense, but I just do.
Taylor Gilbert (30:25)
Right.
Yeah. No, no, it's, it's,
it's very, it's very white supremacy, supremacy culture. It is. It's. Yeah. And I listened to this episode yesterday ⁓ from the doing the work podcast. ⁓ And it's titled white supremacy culture and social work. I will link that.
Faith Voss (30:47)
Yes, yes, yes.
Taylor Gilbert (30:59)
also in the show notes, but I think I'd love to have more of a more another conversation really kind of digging it out with the people that were on that episode. It was really interesting, but I feel like this whole us pointing our fingers at each other and making each other feel bad about this piece is definitely ingrained. ⁓ Yeah, it's just that wise supremacy culture, I think. ⁓
Faith Voss (31:05)
Yeah.
That would be cool.
Mm-hmm.
Taylor Gilbert (31:26)
coming up to the surface. ⁓
Faith Voss (31:31)
Totally.
Taylor Gilbert (31:31)
Yeah.
I feel like my friend Patrick, Patrick Taylor, did a little bit ago. He on his LinkedIn, I have never heard this before, but he describes himself as a social work futurist. I was like, oh, that's, that's kind of cool. Well, that's actually about that. But anyways, he, he messaged me on LinkedIn. was like, random share, look up the disinthral quote by Abraham Lincoln. Let me know what comes to mind.
Faith Voss (31:39)
Hmm.
Cool. Yeah.
Taylor Gilbert (32:02)
Okay, interesting. So I'm going to read the quote really quick. Bear with me. It's a little, you know, it's what anyways, it says the dogmas. It's just like very old, like, you know, old English. Yeah, it says the dogmas.
Faith Voss (32:02)
Okay.
Hahaha
Old school? Yeah.
Taylor Gilbert (32:20)
of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. So a dogma is, side note, a principle, a tenet, or a belief held as authoritative, true, and unquestionable by a group. So the dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise to the occasion.
Faith Voss (32:36)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Taylor Gilbert (32:46)
As our case is new, we must think anew and act anew. We must disinthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country. ⁓ He was like, tell me what comes to mind. And it was interesting. He messaged that to me the same week that I was getting these comments from people. And I was just like, this really resonates right now because I've been receiving a lot of negative comments regarding the fact that like,
Faith Voss (32:55)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Taylor Gilbert (33:14)
I want social workers to be wealthy and I feel like this, know, we must think anew and act anew is like, that's what we're trying to do, right? We're trying to say like the dogmas, the principle, the tenants, the beliefs, all of that past stuff, you know, that has been ingrained in us of it's bad to make money and we're not in it for the income and like all of that, like.
Faith Voss (33:26)
Yes.
Taylor Gilbert (33:42)
We're trying to put that aside and, and, and, and yeah, do something new, think a new act a new, and we won't be able to move forward in the way that we want to, if we can't disinthrall ourselves from those beliefs, you know? And I think also, so that was, that was really, that was really interesting. Yeah, just like quote to read. And also it made me think.
Faith Voss (33:59)
Yes, yes.
I love that.
Taylor Gilbert (34:13)
You know, we're like, we hold the code of ethics. We fucking grip that. We know. And I don't have any beef with the code of ethics, but who wrote the code of ethics? You know, when we talk about this white saver complex and social work, I don't know. I don't know. I didn't look it up, but I'm just curious.
Who was it that wrote that? You know who chaired it? Dr. Reamer.
Faith Voss (34:44)
We know who chaired it.
Taylor Gilbert (34:50)
Is there room for us to critique that and how all of this came to be and what that means for a professional? You know what I mean? So it's like, yes, the code is our like, you know, what we stand by, but also.
Maybe there's room for it to be tweaked.
Faith Voss (35:16)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I totally agree. I totally agree. And for us to maybe include that...
Social workers don't need necessarily just self care, they need like self advocacy and self advocacy involves financial well-being and lower caseloads. And realizing that that is going to contribute to longevity for a social worker in the field. We have a problem with burnout.
Taylor Gilbert (35:44)
Yeah.
Faith Voss (35:47)
We have a problem with attracting new talent. We have a problem with retaining good talent. And so if we want to address those issues, we have to address these problems. And it's just that simple. And so this isn't complex. This isn't, I mean, it is a little, I guess it is a little complex, but like, yo, like just pay people, just pay people.
Taylor Gilbert (35:53)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Right.
What?
We just want
to make, you know, like, decent waves. We just want you to be able to, you know, live the way you want to and donate to the causes that you want to and not be stressed. I'm letting Paytrade pay for that.
Faith Voss (36:22)
Yeah, and
one of the things that I'll just say that just came to mind now is Liz's episode was great, but the thing is that girl was grinding.
She is grinding. That is not sustainable. Seeing 30 people a week, 32 running a consultation group, that girl can hustle, but she is grinding. I know she's grinding, because I've done that. And when you think about, OK, now I'm going to expand my life and maybe have a kid, or I'm going to spend my life and maybe I'm going to do other things. I don't know most social workers.
Taylor Gilbert (36:30)
That was great.
Faith Voss (36:53)
I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. could totally, okay, meaning I'm wrong, but I know I can't, as a social worker, see 30 to 32 people a week for 30 years. I can't do that. I'm going to pull my hair out. Like, that's very, hard work. And I think sustainable caseloads are incredibly important. And so you can't just say like, oh,
Taylor Gilbert (37:05)
No. No.
Faith Voss (37:22)
How do I say this? We need to make more income per patient we see. We need to have higher reimbursement rates. We need be able to see 20 clients, 24 clients, have time for documentation and make more per hour to, you you can't just increase your income by like seeing a ton more clients. Like that's not sustainable.
Taylor Gilbert (37:31)
Yes.
Yes, right.
Absolutely.
Faith Voss (37:46)
And so I think like,
you know, yeah, so anyways, I'll just say like we need livable, sustainable wages. Yeah.
Taylor Gilbert (37:54)
I that
reminds me of what I sent you ⁓ yesterday about the I saw an ad of the NASW. says, this is literally from their Facebook page. Social workers deserve compensation that reflects their education and training, the critical support they provide.
Faith Voss (38:00)
Yes
Which is... Yeah.
Taylor Gilbert (38:19)
NASW is proud to be the lead supporter of the Bipartisan Mental Health Access and Provider Support Act currently before Congress. This bill would increase Medicare reimbursement rates for clinical social workers 75 to 85 percent, helping reduce financial strains, sustain the workforce, strengthen access to care nationwide. Like in the photo it says, NASW is driving legislation to increase social work pay. That's amazing. Amazing.
Faith Voss (38:44)
Love it, love it, love it.
Taylor Gilbert (38:47)
The NASW in social work month partnered with me. Y'all like for social work month, they were using my videos in their ad campaigns and like, and I was
Faith Voss (38:53)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
So if we were doing something
unethical, I don't think they would necessarily partner with you. Yeah.
Taylor Gilbert (39:08)
Right. I'm like, I was talking about financial wellness. Like that's my thing, right? Talking
about finances for social workers, like, which it was so cool for them to reach out to me and be like, hey, you know, we love what you're doing. ⁓ So yeah, this is.
Faith Voss (39:15)
So cool.
Yeah.
Important it's important.
It's a it's important thing in our in our field and like you're right Like the NESW is is I think doing the right thing with that and I think that that's a good it's not Obviously, there's so much room for growth and change and like I'd like to see even more but I think that that's a start and like hey That's great. Mm-hmm
Taylor Gilbert (39:47)
Absolutely. So closing, think, I feel like some of my just, I don't know, things I want people to take away is just us. I mean, we're trying to reframe that financial wellness is not greedy. You know, ⁓ it supports our ability to practice ethically and we need to stop like creating this like more moral hierarchy around income where
If you want financial stability, then you're selfish, you know? And our clients do not benefit from us if we're struggling financially. Like they benefit if we're...
we have stability and longevity in this work and you can show up and be present with the people that you're serving and you're not having this financial stress weighing along, just hovering, weighing on you. It's such a weight and struggling alongside, I feel like...
Faith Voss (40:38)
Yeah.
Yes.
Taylor Gilbert (40:57)
We think that struggling alongside our clients is like solidarity. you know, vaccine white, the white saviorism complex. Like, we got to be financially strong. We don't.
Faith Voss (41:02)
Mmm. Mmm.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We
don't, we don't, we don't. And I think, you know, something that was said to me when I was working ⁓ abroad is that someone said to me, don't you feel badly making money off of people's mental health? And I did not know what to say to that.
And that sat with me for years. And now I know why that comment was said, because of the work we're doing right now. It's like, ⁓ they also believe that ideology, that we're exploiting people.
not exploiting, what am I saying? We're taking advantage of people's pain and, you know, taking money from that. I just, again, we would never say that to a doctor. We would never say that to a nurse. We would never say that to other, a dentist, you know, like, but yeah, we say it to women, a woman-dominated field, because we are...
Taylor Gilbert (41:45)
Right.
Faith Voss (42:08)
choosing to show up in a really difficult place and help people. It just seems odd. And I think it's, again, that ideology that emotional labor doesn't matter and that actually, yeah, it doesn't matter and you should be doing this for free, which is coming from that history of ours, which is like, this should be charity, this should be philanthropy, this should be like...
volunteer work, which the only way you those women were able to do that is because of privilege because they had someone paying the bills. Like that's not the reality we're in at all. At all. Not even close. We're like
Taylor Gilbert (42:49)
No.
Faith Voss (42:49)
years past that. I just, yeah, I just think that that's important to say too is like, what we're doing here at Social Work to Wealth is, in my view, based on what I've learned over the last year and just partnering with Taylor and, you know, being involved in all of this is we're here to educate social workers on their career options, their salary. You know, we have the salary series, the salary database, how to negotiate your salary, how to build your resume.
here to build enthusiasm and excitement for our profession. Like, hey, there's shit you can do that's cool. You don't have to just do a certain thing. You can do so much. We want to draw talent into the field. We want to retain talent in the field, keep seasoned social workers. And we're doing this all by challenging the ideology that we've been taught, that you're not in it for the income. It's like, no, we can be in it for the income and the outcome. And yeah.
Taylor Gilbert (43:24)
Yeah. Yeah.
Faith Voss (43:49)
We are, that's what we're doing here.
Taylor Gilbert (43:52)
Yeah, I think, you know, we talked about the ethics of all of this and ethical social work requires sustainable and healthy practitioners. that's how we, that's how we practice ethically is when we are healthy. So when, when, when we have financial stability, we have more capacity to show up in the way we want to and change the world. Like I,
It would be amazing for all of us to have the money and salaries that we want because we would just, it's like, I don't know, we could just seriously change the world with money. I mean, we see how money is so just can be so impactful.
And so, yeah, it's just one tool proven to change communities when used intentionally. And yeah, I'll end with that. have anything else to say about that?
Faith Voss (44:52)
I love it, I love it. Nope.
Taylor Gilbert (44:55)
love if anyone has comments or response to anything that we said, email me. Put a comment on Spotify. If you do comment on Spotify, like...
Faith Voss (45:01)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Taylor Gilbert (45:07)
I think I've seen comments on Spotify. It's really hard for me to keep. I just wanted to make this a little piece. It's really hard for me to keep up with comments on Spotify. Like if you have a resource question or you have a you you just have a question about something, DM me or email me like it's me who's emailing you back. It's me who will DM you back. If you put a comment on Spotify like just make it a general comment. But if you have a question that you want me to like sure to answer or a resource.
Faith Voss (45:20)
Yeah.
Taylor Gilbert (45:36)
email me but yeah, I would love to hear any feedback or comments about this whether you agree or disagree. Like we're here for that too. So anyways, thanks everyone for listening and we'll be back in two weeks.
Faith Voss (45:45)
I Yeah. Yeah.