{"id":6325,"date":"2012-02-17T13:49:58","date_gmt":"2012-02-17T18:49:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/?p=6325"},"modified":"2012-03-14T16:54:40","modified_gmt":"2012-03-14T20:54:40","slug":"why-home-care-workers-arent-guaranteed-minimum-wage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/2012\/02\/17\/why-home-care-workers-arent-guaranteed-minimum-wage\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Home Care Workers Aren&#8217;t Guaranteed Minimum Wage"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_6332\"  class=\"wp-caption module image left\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/files\/2012\/02\/95609244.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-6332\" title=\"Subsidized Long-Term Care Supporters See Opportunity With Health Care Bill\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/files\/2012\/02\/95609244-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/files\/2012\/02\/95609244-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/files\/2012\/02\/95609244-620x413.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/files\/2012\/02\/95609244-220x146.jpg 220w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Joe Raedle \/ Getty Images<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\"> The reasons home care workers aren&#39;t guaranteed minimum wage and overtime go back decades..<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Recently, the Obama Administration <a title=\"We Can\u2019t Wait: President Obama Will Announce Administrative Action to Provide Minimum Wage and Overtime Protections for Nearly 2 Million In-Home Care Workers\" href=\"http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/the-press-office\/2011\/12\/15\/we-can-t-wait-president-obama-will-announce-administrative-action-provid\" target=\"_blank\">announced plans to change Labor Department rules<\/a> so that home care workers&#8211;personal care aides and home health aides&#8211;are guaranteed federal minimum wage and overtime pay.\u00a0 Right now, states are allowed to decide if they want to include this class of worker under their own minimum wage and overtime laws.\u00a0 Many have opted not to.\u00a0 Since the rules change announcement, we&#8217;ve <a title=\"The States With The Best And Worst Wage Laws For Home Health Workers\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/maps\/home-health-pay-and-overtime-policies-by-state\/\" target=\"_blank\">mapped which states offer these protections<\/a> to home care workers, and which don&#8217;t.\u00a0 Most recently, we <a title=\"Seven Takeaways From The Carsey Institute\u2019s Report On Raising Wages For Home Care Workers\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/2012\/02\/16\/seven-takeaways-from-the-carsey-institutes-report-on-raising-wages-for-home-care-workers\/\" target=\"_blank\">broke down a study<\/a> looking at the economic benefits and drawbacks of requiring higher pay for many of these workers.<\/p>\n<p>This issue has led to a key question among some of our readers: Why aren&#8217;t home care workers guaranteed minimum wage and overtime when their colleagues in hospitals and nursing homes are?<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><div class=\"related-content alignright\"><h4 class=\"related-header\">Related<\/h4><div class=\"links\"><h5>Posts<\/h5><ul><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/maps\/home-health-pay-and-overtime-policies-by-state\/\">The States With The Best And Worst Wage Laws For Home Health Workers<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/2012\/02\/16\/seven-takeaways-from-the-carsey-institutes-report-on-raising-wages-for-home-care-workers\/\">Seven Takeaways From The Carsey Institute\u2019s Report On Raising Wages For Home Care Workers<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/2011\/08\/18\/health-care-job-boom-could-soon-slow\/\">Health Care Job Boom Could Soon\u00a0Slow<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><div class=\"topics\"><h5>Topics<\/h5><p class=\"topic\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/files\/2011\/10\/1058204843_32496fe28c-60x60.jpg\" height=\"60\" width=\"60\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/topic\/new-hampshire-economy\/\">Your Guide To New Hampshire\u2019s Economy<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div>The answer goes back a long way, but there are two key dates to remember: <a title=\"Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938: Maximum Struggle for a Minimum Wage\" href=\"http:\/\/www.dol.gov\/oasam\/programs\/history\/flsa1938.htm\" target=\"_blank\">1938 and 1974<\/a>.\u00a0 In 1938, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the <a title=\"Fair Labor Standards Act\" href=\"http:\/\/www.dol.gov\/whd\/regs\/statutes\/FairLaborStandAct.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)<\/a> into law.\u00a0 The FLSA was sweeping legislation that, among other things, established the federal minimum wage, overtime laws, and abolished child labor.<\/p>\n<p>Now fast-forward to 1974.\u00a0 Congress amended the FLSA to cover &#8220;domestic service workers.&#8221;\u00a0 So now, almost anyone working in a home&#8211;like a housekeeper, butler, or cook&#8211;would be guaranteed minimum wage and overtime, too.\u00a0 But Congress also included an exemption for workers providing &#8220;companionship services&#8221; to people too young, old, or sick to take care of themselves.\u00a0 The idea was, parents shouldn&#8217;t have to pay babysitters or occasional caregivers minimum wage and overtime.\u00a0 And as the <a title=\"Carsey Institute\" href=\"http:\/\/www.carseyinstitute.unh.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\">Carsey Institute&#8217;s<\/a> Kristin Smith explains in her report &#8220;<a title=\"Lack of Protections for Home Care Workers Overtime Pay and Minimum Wage\" href=\"http:\/\/www.carseyinstitute.unh.edu\/publications\/IB-Smith-Home-Care-Workers.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Lack of Protections for Home Care Workers: Overtime Pay and Minimum Wage<\/a>,&#8221; it mostly seemed to work just fine, until more women joined the workforce:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;The large scale movement of women into the paid labor market has brought sweeping change to the structure of family life and who cares for family members.\u00a0 One consequence of this phenomenon was the development of a category of paid workers&#8211;the home care worker&#8211;to provide care that had previously been performed by women in the home.\u00a0 Today, our society depends, in part, on the caring labor of many paid professionals to supplement the paid family care of the elderly and disabled adults.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In other words, in 1974, a lot of housewives used to take care of their old or sick relatives for free.\u00a0 But as their daughters increasingly joined the workforce, it left a giant gap in care&#8211;which home care agencies were happy to fill.\u00a0 Now there are about 1.7 million home care workers, and many of them aren&#8217;t making minimum wage or getting overtime pay.\u00a0 So the Obama Administration wants to change the Labor Department&#8217;s rules to cover these workers.\u00a0 And if the change goes through, it will cost $4.7 million a year over the next decade, according to statistics Smith cited from the Department of Labor.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recently, the Obama Administration announced plans to change Labor Department rules so that home care workers&#8211;personal care aides and home health aides&#8211;are guaranteed federal minimum wage and overtime pay.\u00a0 Right now, states are allowed to decide if they want to include this class of worker under their own minimum wage and overtime laws.\u00a0 Many have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":6332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[54],"tags":[28,556,262,513],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6325"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6325"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6342,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6325\/revisions\/6342"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}