{"id":6180,"date":"2012-02-16T12:51:35","date_gmt":"2012-02-16T17:51:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/?p=6180"},"modified":"2012-03-14T16:55:13","modified_gmt":"2012-03-14T20:55:13","slug":"seven-takeaways-from-the-carsey-institutes-report-on-raising-wages-for-home-care-workers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/2012\/02\/16\/seven-takeaways-from-the-carsey-institutes-report-on-raising-wages-for-home-care-workers\/","title":{"rendered":"Seven Takeaways From The Carsey Institute’s Report On Raising Wages For Home Care Workers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Alex Wong \/ Getty Images<\/p>

President Obama is pushing for a Labor Department rules change that would require home care agencies to pay aides minimum wage and overtime.<\/p><\/div>\n

By far, our most popular post to date is a map we created<\/a> using federal data on which states offer minimum wage and overtime guarantees to home health workers, and which don’t.\u00a0 Right now, under the Fair Labor Standards Act<\/a> (FLSA), certain classes of workers, ranging from babysitters to home care workers–personal care aides and home health aides–don’t have to be paid minimum wage.*\u00a0 So states are left to decide if they want to cover home care workers under their own wage laws.<\/p>\n

Many are choosing not to.<\/p>\n

Now, President Obama is pushing the Labor Department<\/a> to rewrite federal regulations so home care workers could be guaranteed both benefits.<\/p>\n

And whether it’s politicians, families struggling to pay for in-home care, or the agencies that employ these workers, the rules change has been highly controversial.<\/p>\n

In her report “Lack of Protections for Home Care Workers: Overtime Pay and Minimum Wage<\/a>,”\u00a0 Carsey Institute<\/a> researcher Kristin Smith breaks down the differences in pay and hours of home health workers versus hospital and nursing home aides, who do similar work and are “typically” guaranteed minimum wage and overtime.\u00a0 (As a group, home health, personal care, nursing home and hospital aides are called “direct care workers.”)<\/p>\n

Smith’s report is short, but numbers-dense.\u00a0 So with that in mind, here are the seven key takeaways:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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          1. Home care workers have lower median wages than comparable workers in hospitals<\/strong><\/strong> and nursing homes: <\/strong>While half of all American workers made more than $16.83 an hour in 2010, the median hourly wage for all direct care workers–hospital, nursing home, and in-home aides–dipped sharply, to $10.22.\u00a0 And the wages of home care workers help drag down that figure.\u00a0 The median hourly wage for hospital aides is the best in the direct care category, at $12, followed by nursing home aides at about a dollar less.\u00a0 Meanwhile, the median wage for both types of home care worker is less than $10 an hour.\u00a0 But Smith notes that “median wages mask the fact that some workers are paid lower than the minimum wage.”\u00a0 That’s because half of the people counted make more than that amount…and half make less<\/em>.\u00a0 So it’s instructive to look at the “lowest quartile” for wages.\u00a0 When Smith looked at the range of pay for the lowest-paid segment of each population, she found that direct care workers in the lowest quartile just skirted the edge of the $7.25 federal minimum wage<\/a>, at $7.63.\u00a0 Once again, hospital and nursing home aides were above that range.\u00a0 But the lowest quartile among home health aides made less than $7.21 an hour, while one-in-four personal care aides made less than $6.59 an hour.