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The job quality and wages of home care workers are the focus of recently published articles in LeadingAge Magazine and BrainTrack.

“Ethical Workplaces” Needed

In LeadingAge, writer Dianne Molvig explains the need to create more “ethical workplaces” for home care employees.

“To me, an ethical home care organization is one that cultivates both quality care and quality jobs,” PHI Policy Research Director Dorie Seavey is quoted as saying in the article.

“High quality care is individualized and respectful,” Seavey continues. “High quality jobs provide a family-sustaining wage, affordable health insurance and respect for the worker, who gets excellent training and is allowed to participate in decision-making.”

Molvig uses PHI data to show that wages, retention, and overall working conditions for home care workers must improve if the U.S. hopes to keep pace with the increasing demand for such care.

She cites two organizations — Senior Independence in Columbus, Ohio, and Loretto’s PACE Central New York in upstate New York — as examples of ethical workplaces. Both organizations have invested in their workers in recent years, with positive results.

Revising FLSA Is “Win-Win”

The BrainTrack article, by Beth Panitz, focuses on the debate surrounding a proposed revision to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which would extend minimum wage and overtime protections to home care workers.

“This revision would be an essential first step to stabilizing the home care workforce and positioning it to meet the demand we see coming,” Seavey is quoted as saying.

“We can raise the floor of these jobs in a way that’s win-win. We can attract more workers to these jobs so that we meet demand, and in so doing, it will improve the livelihood of workers,” Seavey adds.

Opponents of the proposed revision have argued that it will lower care quality by making it more expensive for home care companies to employ workers for 40 hours or more a week, which they say is necessary to establish care continuity. Seavey, however, told Panitz that “the notion that you get the best care when you have one aide working more than 40 hours a week is very questionable.

“We need a more modern approach to what continuity of care means,” Seavey added.

– by Matthew Ozga

A new report by the Older Women’s League (OWL) expresses support for a proposed revision to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) that would extend basic wage protections to home care workers.

The report, Women and the Workforce: Challenges and Opportunities Facing Women as They Age, examines the effect of the current job market on women aged 40 and older.

In the report’s “Policy & Legislative Recommendations” section, OWL states that FLSA should be amended “to extend basic labor protections, including minimum wage and overtime premium pay, to home care workers.”

Elsewhere, the report uses PHI data (pdf) to explain that ensuring quality jobs for direct-care workers is an important women’s rights issue; nearly 90 percent of direct-care workers are female, and their average age is 42.

Additionally, OWL’s report cites Partners in Care, the nation’s largest home health agency, as a model workplace for direct-care workers for its training and certification programs.

– by Matthew Ozga

Top home health franchises earn gross profit margins as high as 40 percent, making home care one of the five most profitable franchise ventures in the country, according to a report (pdf) by Franchise Business Review, a market research firm.

The report was highlighted in a recent USA Today article.

But despite these huge profits, the home health industry has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting a proposed federal rule that would extend basic wage protections to home care workers.

Asked about this discrepancy by USA Today, PHI Policy Research Director Dorie Seavey said, “I find it really hard to reconcile that one of the most profitable sectors is pinching pennies when it comes to workers.”

Home health aides earned a median wage of $9.91 an hour (pdf) in 2011. Adjusting for inflation, that’s a 12 percent decline from their 2001 wages.

In December, President Obama proposed to end the “companionship exemption” in the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, which excludes home care workers from minimum-wage and overtime protections.

During a recent public-comment period, 26,000 comments on the proposal were submitted to the Department of Labor, of which three quarters were in support. Publication of a final rule could come as early as this summer.

– by Matthew Ozga

Terry Bucher

The U.S. cannot build the home care workforce it needs to care for the aging baby-boomer generation unless home care workers are paid fairly, argues an op-ed published in the Orlando Sentinel on April 27.

The op-ed was written by Terry Bucher, the president emeritus of the Florida Professional Association of Care Givers.

In the op-ed, Bucher explains that Florida is one of 29 states that do not offer home care workers basic wage protections, such as minimum wage or time-and-a-half overtime pay. The federal Fair Labor Standards Act similarly excludes home care workers from such protections.

“Florida’s home-care workers are dedicated and diligent,” Bucher writes. “But until they are guaranteed a fair wage, Florida will simply not be able to attract enough qualified workers to meet the growing need for home-care services.”

Hope for a Federal Rule Change

In late 2011, the Obama administration proposed a federal rule change that would finally extend basic wage protections to home care workers.

Bucher notes that the Department of Labor received 26,000 public comments regarding the proposal — most of them in favor of the change.

The DOL must act to extend overtime and minimum wage protections to home care workers, Bucher writes.

She cites PHI research (pdf) in arguing that the $84 billion home care industry can easily afford to pay its workers a fair wage.

Additionally, better wages for home care workers would lower worker turnover, Bucher writes. High turnover rates are costly to home care companies and result in lower-quality care for elders and people with disabilities.

– by Matthew Ozga

PHI President Steven L. Dawson and Center for Economic and Policy Research Co-Director Dean Baker, in an op-ed published in The Washington Post on March 29, contend that the exemption of home care workers from federal minimum wage and overtime protections under the Fair Labor Standards Act is an “issue that affects the welfare of women,” but gets little attention.

In “Home Health Aides Deserve a Living Wage,” Dawson and Baker write that “caregiving in America is a female occupation.” Women are the vast majority of family caregivers and comprise 90 percent of the paid home care workforce (pdf) — which explains why home care workers have been excluded from basic federal labor guarantees.

“Caregiving, like other forms of domestic service, has traditionally been considered less important than jobs done by white men,” Dawson and Baker write. “The idea that domestic work is not ‘real work’ has kept wages low for all types of ‘women’s work.’” The annual income of home care workers is $16,600.

“Extending minimum wage and overtime protections to home-care workers is another step in America’s progress toward ending gender and racial discrimination,” Dawson and Baker write. “But fairness is not the only reason to make this change,” they add, noting that it would also help to reduce costly turnover and meet the rapidly increasing demand for these workers as the nation’s population ages.

“The country needs a national solution that helps us all meet our family responsibilities. That includes building a skilled, stable workforce by treating caregiving as real work and paying those who provide these services a living wage,” Dawson and Baker advise.

More Media Coverage on the Companionship Exemption

PHI National Policy Director Steve Edelstein was interviewed by America’s Workforce Radio on March 30 on the proposal to revise the companionship exemption.

National Domestic Workers Alliance Director Ai-Jen Poo and Jobs with Justice Executive Director Sarita Gupta, the co-directors of Caring Across Generations (CAG), discussed workers’ rights with Bill Moyers on his new PBS television show. CAG is a coalition of 200 organizations, including PHI, that seek to provide quality care and dignity for aging Americans and their caregivers.

For other media coverage and more information on the companionship exemption, visit PHI’s Campaign for Fair Pay site.

– by Deane Beebe

Steven Edelstein

SUMMARY: Steve Edelstein, PHI national policy director, discusses the background and current status of efforts to extend federal minimum wage and overtime protections to home care workers on the America’s Work Force radio program in Ohio.

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download podcast (mp3)
Recorded: March 30, 2012
Duration: 12:00
File Size: 16.5 MB