Fair Wages for Home Care Workers Act

Key Points

• This bill removes the exemption that currently allows employers to skip paying minimum wage and overtime to professional home care workers, including home health aides and personal care aides, by amending the Fair Labor Standards Act.
• The bill narrows the existing domestic service exemption so that only casual babysitters — people who watch children on an irregular or intermittent basis and don't do it as their main job — remain exempt from minimum wage and overtime rules.
• Professional caregivers such as registered nurses, vocational nurses, practical nurses, home health aides, and personal care aides are explicitly excluded from the narrowed babysitting exemption, meaning they must be paid at least minimum wage and overtime.
• The bill also repeals subsection (b)(21) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which currently exempts certain live-in domestic service employees from overtime requirements, ensuring these workers get overtime pay too.
• Casual babysitters can still perform some household work unrelated to childcare without losing their exemption, as long as that extra work doesn't exceed 20% of their total hours.

Votes

No votes have been recorded for this legislation yet.