In 2015, the U.S. Department of Labor’s final home care rules went into effect, extending the federal minimum wage and overtime protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to two-million-plus home care workers in the United States. These new rules end the racist and sexist exclusion of home care workers from these basic federal protections and provide most of them with a floor of basic labor protections that will improve their working conditions.
As the demand for home care continues to surge, ensuring good jobs is critical to promoting quality of care and to sustaining local and state economies. States and other employers must now abide by state and federal laws and do right by both workers and consumers.