Yesterday, President Obama announced that the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) had enacted a new regulation that will require home care workers to be paid minimum wage and overtime pay. Home care workers are workers who care for elderly and infirm patients in the patients’ own homes. Up until this new regulation came into effect, under federal law, home care workers could be paid less than minimum wage and forced to work more than 40 hours per week without overtime pay because they were treated just like baby sitters.
President Obama said that DOL enacted this new regulation because paying these home care workers less than minimum wage was “just wrong.” Mr. Obama said “I can tell you firsthand that these men and women, they work their tails off, and they don’t complain. They deserve to be treated fairly. They deserve to be paid fairly for a service that many older Americans couldn’t live without. And companies who do pay fair wages to these women shouldn’t be put at a disadvantage.”
If you are a home care worker that receives less than minimum wage and/or no overtime pay, you should contact an experienced employment lawyer to learn about your rights.