Department of Labor Wage and Hour Rules To Cover Home Health Care Workers

Beginning on October 13th, live-in home health care agencies will have one month to get their books in order and prepare to ensure that their workers are receiving minimum wage and the overtime compensation they are entitled to. The U.S. Supreme Court denied the agencies’ motion for a stay of enforcement of these provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, and now they have 30 days to comply.

The FLSA provides numerous requirements, including that workers receive at least the minimum wage (the federal minimum wage is currently $7.25, although it is higher in several states and cities across the country), as well as requiring that all non-exempt workers receive overtime pay at a rate of one and one-half their standard hourly wage for all time worked in excess of forty hours in any one workweek. The Department of Labor had originally classified home health care workers as exempt. However, a recent Supreme Court ruling changed that, bringing home health care workers into the fold and finding that they were not automatically excluded from minimum wage and overtime laws.

How these protections will change the home health care environment remains to be seen. However, it is a positive step forward in improving the working conditions for these wage earners.

For more information, please contact the experienced Atlanta wage and hour lawyers at Buckley Bala Wilson Mew LLP for an immediate case evaluation.