My Mother in New York State has had live-in health aides for several years now, first self-pay and now under Medicaid. My sister, who is very limited in how much help she can provide with my Mother’s activities, got a call today from the agency that provides the aides, telling her that, as of January 1, no live in aide can work more than two weeks straight because of new legal overtime provisions. I can’t find anything online relevant to this situation.
Is anyone aware of this change?
While stricter overtime provisions may help many hourly workers, this also means that live in aides will only be working half of the time, unless there is some way they can work elsewhere for two weeks on, two weeks off.
The new rule is that live in aides must be paid at least minimum wage for the actual hours they work, and overtime for the overtime hours they work, just like other workers. I’m having trouble figuring out why a health aide would be worse off only having to work two weeks a month for the same money that they usually got for four weeks of work.
Obviously, people who hire health aides are worse off having to pay them at least minimum wage, plus overtime when they work overtime, instead of the previous situation where wage and hour laws did not apply to home health aides. But the health aides will be better off.
Does the law say that they can only work “two weeks on, two weeks off” or that they need a day off after two weeks (14 days straight) of being with your mother 24 hours a day?
My guess would be that the aide needs to be given a day or two off after every two weeks. As someone who moonlights as a home health aide, that makes perfect sense to me. Would YOU want to work 24/7 with a very needy client without getting at least a couple of days off???
For the sake of the aide, and the client, time off is a good thing. Otherwise the aide gets exhausted and frustrated, and can get careless or short-tempered. Accidents can happen in a situation like that. People need time to shop, go to the library or doctor, visit family, walk around the block!
Yesterday I spent 8 hours with a couple who both have dementia, both have balance issues and incontinence issues, both have pressure sores. I had to bathe and dress them, toilet them frequently and change diapers (because of course one would urinate within ten minutes of getting off the toilet…), cook two meals and feed one of them, clean the home and do two loads of laundry, entertain them, care for their dog, unclog a toilet left a disaster by the aide who went off duty before I arrived, and probably a few other things. I can’t imagine doing that 24/7 for two weeks without a break.
Yes, it is hard for families to pay a fair wage. But the work is not respected and paid at minimum wage which isn’t nearly enough for the crap (literally and figuratively) that these aides often have to put up with. And of course, no health insurance…
What are you missing? Probably not much. The problem is that Medicaid and/or the agency is not interested in paying the now required overtime premium so that to get around the new law, hours are limited to the last hour before overtime has to be paid.
I know a family member and some friends’ family members who are most distressed about this new law. They count on working extra hours even without overtime, though some agency have some bonus pay for hard to fill shifts, and now they will be restricted in hours they can work, unless they find another employer and be working for two companies.
This has been the trend in a lot of businesses these days. In order to avoid paying overtime, or avoid giving full time benefits that are mandated by law, getting full time work has become more difficult. Companies bend over backwards to avoid paying that overtime and make policies to limit hours and have more part time employees so that they don’t find themselves paying a dime of overtime. People then have to find more than one job to even get full time hours. Shows how these laws that have good intent can end up hurting rather than helping. Similar situations occur with minimum wage laws. When there is a way around it that results in sufficient savings, companies will do it and the employees often end up wit less.
Employers no doubt have reams of reasons why labor laws that apply to all other employees shouldn’t apply to home health aides, and why home health aides shouldn’t be entitled to overtime pay. Those same employers would love to underpay other workers too.
Live-in domestic workers are exempt from federal overtime regulations, but must still be paid the minimum wage for all hours worked.
Certainly aides deserve good wages and time off. No issue there. The good ones are still underpaid for the difficult work they do.
One impracticality is that aides like those who care for my Mother don’t have cars and must get transportation to and from their residences, often 2-3 hours away. So taking off a day or two, or even two weeks after working two weeks, is not appealing. The good aides she has had strongly preferred to work 3-4 weeks in a row, with 7-10 days off. And they will lose money, since they are paid 1.5 times the hourly rate for the second 8 hours each day (they are technically off the 3rd-8 hours) so they will lose money even if they were only making the previous min wage and now get the new one.
It is also maddening that neither the agency supplying aides, or the recently-required managed care company, did not tell us until after the new regs were in effect.
I don’t know if Medicaid will be picking up the increase.
In HI, the law has long been that if you work 3 weeks consecutively for at least 20 hours each week, you are entitled to medical insurance benefits at your place of work. That has been circumvented by the state judiciary, education and many other departments by having people never getting those 3 weeks consecutively with those 20 hours–only 19 hours/week, 40 hours for the 1st 2 weeks and then 19 hours the 3rd week, and many, many improperly being labeled “independent contractors.”. Many have to hold multiple jobs because they can’t get anyone who will hire them for more than 19 hours/week, and often less.
There are often sadly, many unintended and bad consequences of well-meant laws that are supposed to improve the lot of workers but actually can just make it tougher for both the employees and employers.