In 2013, the Obama administration included live-in caregivers in U.S. wage and overtime law. Previously, those caregivers – along with salaried workers – had been exempt from overtime provisions, Home Health Care News reports.
The administration’s goal at the time was to raise caregiver wages. That has certainly happened, albeit in a small number of cases. Mostly, though, the Obama-era regulation has ended up decreasing the amount of live-in care that home care agencies provide.
“Live-in care used to be a less expensive way of getting 24-hour care,” Georgetown Home Care (GHC) CEO John Bradshaw told Home Health Care News. “Now, it’s a really expensive way of getting a limited number of caregivers. Families need people there around the clock, but don’t want to have six caregivers coming in every week, doing 12-hour shifts. It’s now, really, just for the wealthy.” Read more.
