Fair Pay for Caregiving

Change is too slow coming for the nation’s 1,000,000 home care helpers.
In 2007, the high court unanimously upheld a 1975 federal labor regulation that defines home care aides as companions. That definition exempts home care companies regularly for-profit agencies from having to pay the federal minimum wage or time and a half for overtime. In explaining their decision, the justices indicated that the law gives the work Department, not the court, the power to switch the regulation. Yet, more than two years later, the regulation still stands.
Last month, 15 senators sent a letter to Hilda Solis, President Obama’s work secretary, urging her to dispose of the companion exemption. A month earlier, 37 House members sent an identical letter. But beyond a statement from Ms. Solis expressing concern and promising to look into the matter, there has been no progress.
As expected, home care helpers who sometimes help to feed, dress and move their aged and disabled clients, as well as keeping house for them remain among the most underpaid and overworked in the labor force. They typically manage to make above the countrywide minimum wage ( $6.55 an hour now, rising to $7.25 an hour later this month ), in big part because many states impose higher minimums than the feds. Still, most make below $10 an hour. And they are typically denied overtime pay. Federal rules don’t demand it, and only 16 states and the District of Columbia need any extra pay for additional work. Absence of overtime pay is particularly unfair in the home care field because additional long shifts, including overnight stays, are common.
Taxpayers ultimately make up for the low pay because many home care helpers depend on food stamps and other public help. The general public pays in other ways, too : turnover is high, undermining the quality of care and driving up overall costs. The labor Department got off to a slow start when Republican senators held up Ms. Solis’s confirmation, in part, to protest her support for unions. But further delay raises the danger the plight of home care helpers will get mired in the broader debate over medicare costs.
Another danger is that industry opposition to better pay will gain replenished traction in today’s troubled economy. Some home care employers say that having to pay additional for overtime could drive them into bankruptcy. In states where varying degrees of wage and overtime protections are in place for home care assistants, that has not been the result. And a business model that depends on rejecting overtime pay to the work force is unsatisfactory.
When the work Department issues a new rule, there’s a comment period, generally 3 months. That should be adequate time to address legitimate concerns, like the easiest way to help states whose Medicaid home care budgets are based totally on the previous pay practices. Home care aides should not need to wait any longer than that for the fair pay they’ve been denied for so long.