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Steven Edelstein

SUMMARY: Steve Edelstein, PHI national policy director, discusses efforts to extend minimum wage and overtime protections to home care workers and the expected benefits to continuity and quality of care.

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Recorded: March 7, 2012
Duration: 06:25
File Size: 5.88 MB

America’s undervalued home care workforce deserves to be paid a fair wage, according to an op-ed published in Newsday on March 6.

In the op-ed, S.E. Watts, who lives with physical limitations, writes that she depends on her home care workers to help her perform basic tasks, including bathing, preparing meals, and housekeeping.

However, under the Fair Labor Standards Act‘s “companionship exemption,” home care workers are excluded from the basic federal wage protections of minimum wage and time-and-a-half pay for overtime.

“These workers…are considered [by federal law] to be mere ‘companions’ to the ‘elderly and infirm,’ the equivalent of a teenage baby-sitter,” Watts writes.

In December 2011, President Obama announced a proposed rule change that would finally extend minimum-wage and overtime protections to home care workers. The public has until March 21 to submit a comment on the proposal.

Home care workers are the “backbone of the home care system, yet they are undervalued and do not get the respect that they deserve. Updating the companionship exemption would be a very good start,” Watts writes.

For more information on the companionship exemption, including sample comments, visit the PHI Campaign for Fair Pay home page.

– by Matthew Ozga

UPDATE: On March 9, the DOL extended the public comment period to March 21. This post has been updated to reflect that change.

The U.S., which will need 1.3 million more home care workers by 2020, will not be able to meet this ever-increasing demand unless home care jobs improve.

A Department of Labor (DOL) proposal to amend the “companionship exemption” to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) would go a long way toward valuing home care workers and the important jobs they do.

The “companionship exemption” currently excludes home care workers from a guaranteed minimum wage and time-and-a-half pay for overtime. The DOL proposal would fix that, finally giving home care workers the same basic labor protections nearly every other U.S. worker enjoys.

The public has until March 21 to submit a comment on the proposal.

Thousands of Comments Already Submitted

People on all sides of the issue — consumers, employers, workers, academics, and advocates — have already weighed in on the DOL’s proposed change by submitting their own comments.

PHI thinks that valuing the worker is the right thing to do. “This country is facing a tremendous demand for long-term services and supports,” said PHI National Policy Director Steve Edelstein in a March 7 podcast for the Fairness Initiative on Low-Wage Work.

The latest DOL employment projections, released last week, show that an additional 1.3 million home care workers will be needed to meet rising demand by 2020.

“The only way we’re going to possibly be able to keep up with that demand is to improve the quality of jobs for the home health aides and personal care aides who provide these essential services,” Edelstein said, explaining PHI’s support for limiting the companionship exemption.

Many others think so too. Some of the comments include:

• “I am a labor economist whose research has focused on women workers, especially those with low wages. Unfortunately, home care aides are the quintessential low-wage worker… The proposed regulations would do a great deal to make this work and these workers more visible as well as more highly valued.”
• “I am 75 years old and will be facing the probability of needing in-home care for myself and my husband in the not too distant future. I want to know that the people providing that care are being paid fairly and are well qualified to do that job. We can’t get well qualified people if they aren’t compensated fairly.”
• “I support applying the FLSA rules to domestic service. I employ caregivers through an agency to help with my 94-year-old blind and cognitively impaired mother… Better wages and working conditions will attract the best people to do these difficult but very important jobs.”
• “I am fortunate enough to receive home care from two wonderful and caring people. Please help ensure that these women, who are literally my lifesavers, can earn a wage more in line with the tremendous value of the services they provide for individuals, families and communities.”

To learn more about the companionship exemption — and find out how to express your opinion by leaving a comment before the March 21 deadline — visit the PHI Fair Pay for Home Care Workers site.

– by Matthew Ozga

A recent study argues that extending federal minimum wage and overtime protections to home care workers will improve the quality of their jobs, stabilize the home care workforce, and boost recruitment and retention in the home care field.

In the report, published by the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey Institute, author Kristin Smith compares hourly wages among different types of direct-care workers.

She finds that personal care aides and home health aides earn much lower wages, on average, compared with direct-care workers employed in nursing homes and hospitals.

The Obama Administration proposed the changes in the Fair Labor Standards Act to extend minimum wage and overtime protections to most home care workers in late 2011. Following a public-comment period, the changes could take effect by this summer.

Media Continues to Track Story

The proposal to amend the companionship exemption has received additional media attention in recent days, including a commentary from PHI, “Home Care Workers Need Your Support,” published at the Community Catalyst Health Policy Hub. Community Catalyst organizes advocates to ensure that local communities have a role in transforming health care in their communities.

Commentaries also appeared in The Nation and The Hill.

Additionally, Bloomberg Businessweek published an article on the companionship exemption, “Growing Home Care Industry May Have to Raise Pay,” on Feb. 28. It includes a refutation of the home industry’s claim that home care costs would increase if basic labor protections are extended to workers.

Submit a Comment

The deadline for submitting an official comment is March 12.

To submit an official comment, learn more, and read other coverage on the companionship exemption, visit the PHI Fair Pay for Home Care Workers site.

– by Matthew Ozga

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced that the public now has until March 12 to comment on the proposed revisions to the “companionship exemption,” which would give home care workers federal minimum wage and overtime protections under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The short extension should have no impact on the ability of the Department of Labor to issue final regulations by this summer.

Private Duty Franchises Fight Change

In a flurry of recent advocacy, the trade organizations for the rapidly growing private duty franchises have ratcheted up their opposition to the proposed regulations.

In a recent USA Today article, “High Turnover Affects Home Health Care Quality,” Gale Bohling, director of government relations for the National Private Duty Association, says that if home care workers are paid for working overtime they “will not be able to assist people they consider family.”

Showing his complete lack of respect for the millions of women who provide home care services, Bohling adds, “For them, this really isn’t a job; it’s a lifestyle.”

Catherine Ruckelshaus, legal co-director of the National Employment Law Project, which is supporting the rule change, notes in the same article that home care workers’ salaries are around “$16,000 a year. No one can live on that. I think we forget the broader picture here.”

Notably, Bohling fails to mention that, as a result of their poor wages, half of home care workers live in households that rely on public benefits.

In an MSNBC blog post, “Home Health Care Industry Fights Overtime Proposal,” PHI National Policy Director Steve Edelstein takes on the industry claims.

In the post, he argues that “the exemption was never really intended to apply to businesses like home care agencies, and it wasn’t supposed to apply to workers who were doing these jobs as a vocation. We just have to recognize that it’s a real job and pay for the services accordingly.”

Advocates Speak Out

PHI and its partners at the Caring Across Generations campaign have been advocating for the regulatory change in a variety of media outlets. The following commentaries appeared last week:

• Washington Times, “Home Care Workers Can Relieve the Stress of Caregiving“
• Huffington Post, “Looking Out for Homecare Workers, Looking Out for Our Future“
• New America Media, “Fair Pay for 25 Million Home Care Aides Facing Industry Opposition“

Submit a Comment

To submit an official comment, learn more, and read other coverage on the companionship exemption, visit the PHI Fair Pay for Home Care Workers site.

– by Deane Beebe

A new PHI fact sheet disproves the home care industry’s oft-repeated claim that it cannot afford to pay its workers time and a half for overtime hours without passing costs along to consumers.

Home Care Jobs: The Straight Facts on Hours Work (pdf), draws upon nationally representative surveys and statistics and finds that home care workers, on average, work between 31 and 34 hours a week.

The new fact sheet is the sixth installment in PHI’s Value the Care! series, which explains the potential impacts of the recent Department of Labor (DOL) proposal to extend minimum-wage and overtime protections to home care workers.

Home care companies say that they will have to raise service fees if the government forces them to pay workers extra for overtime. But the PHI fact sheet shows that the vast majority of home health and personal care aides (approximately 90 percent) do not even work enough hours to qualify for overtime pay.

“The claim that the added cost of paying overtime to home care workers will result in significantly increased costs to employers and/or consumers is not supported by the available statistical evidence,” the report states.

Inconsistent Hours a Bigger Issue

The PHI fact sheet also finds that nearly 60 percent of home care aides work on a part-time basis.

Increasing the workloads of part-time home care workers who want to work full-time is a “far more pressing issue” than anything the home care industry claims, the report says. It continues:

Current employment patterns for home care aides suggest that considerable capacity exists for rebalancing workloads across existing workers. Creating more balanced workloads will not only limit any increases in overtime costs for home care companies but will also minimize any recruitment costs associated with hiring new workers.

Enacting the proposed DOL rule change would spur employers to control costs by distributing hours more evenly among their workers, the report argues.

A newly published PHI report (pdf) examines three employers that have successfully used innovative methods to manage their workers’ hours — thereby controlling costs — while maintaining a high standard of care quality.

The government is accepting public comments on the DOL’s proposed rule change through February 27.

– by Matthew Ozga