Many senior caregivers in California are waiting for their promised fair wage and overtime pay.
Back in January, United States District Judge Michael J. Leon ruled that in-home care workers are essentially companions and thus exempt from the Department of Labor’s mandated minimum wage and overtime pay for hourly workers. This is great news for third party employers like the Home Care Association of America, who state that if wages go up, so must the cost of care billed to seniors and their families.
California has one of the most stringent overtime pay laws in the nation. According to the Department of Industrial Relations, a California employer must pay overtime at 1.5 times an employee’s regular rate of pay for any hours over an 8 hour workday or over a 40 hour workweek. Double-time is paid for hours over a 12-hour work day or when an employee works the 7th day in a week. The minimum wage in the state of California, as of July 1, 2014, is $9 per hour (an increase from $8), and an increase to $10 per hour is scheduled for July 1, 2016.
As reported on LawyersandSettlements.com., more than 400,000 California caregivers are waiting for the ruling to be overturned. Until then, they are making 2014 wages with no overtime compensation.
It is an unfortunate debate, as in-home senior care workers make it possible for the elderly to stay at home and age in place. Even with minimum wage and overtime compensation, the in-home senior care industry saves families (and the state) money considering Caregiverlist’s® recent California Nursing Home Rating and Cost Index puts the average cost of a private room in one of the 1,320 nursing homes in that state at $257.57 per day, with some of the higher-end institutions charging over $400 per day. Of course, in-home senior care provides the one-on-one care that many elderly respond to best.
We at Caregiverlist, along with the more than 400,000 caregivers, entreat California’s Governor Brown to fulfill his original commitment to treating in-home caregivers to the same benefits as all other hourly workers in California. The funds are already in the budget and cannot be used for other purposes. All of California’s in-home care workers anticipate the ruling to be overturned on appeal.
