Congress quietly exempts home care workers from minimum wage rules
H.R. 2304 — Ensuring Access to Affordable and Quality Home Care for Seniors and People with Disabilities Act · Filed by Mary Miller (R-IL) · Introduced Mar 24, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill amends the Fair Labor Standards Act to explicitly preserve and expand exemptions from minimum wage and overtime protections for home care workers—including those employed through third-party agencies. It redefines 'companionship services' and 'domestic service' to cover a broad range of in-home care tasks (bathing, medication reminders, meal prep, etc.) and explicitly permits these workers to be classified as exempt from federal wage protections, even when employed by staffing agencies rather than directly by families.
Why we flagged it
The bill's functional purpose is to codify and expand existing Fair Labor Standards Act exemptions that allow home care workers to be paid below minimum wage and without overtime protections. Despite the title's focus on 'affordable and quality' care, the mechanism achieves affordability by exempting workers from wage protections, not by subsidizing care or improving quality standards.
What the text implies
- The bill explicitly extends exemptions to third-party employment agencies, meaning staffing companies can now legally pay home care workers below minimum wage—a significant expansion beyond direct family employment.
- By defining companionship services to include medical tasks like 'medication reminders' and 'bathing assistance,' the bill may blur the line between non-medical and medical care, potentially allowing lower-wage workers to perform quasi-medical duties without corresponding protections.
The full analysis lists 5 implications of this text.
Who stands to gain
home care staffing agencies; managed long-term care insurers (Medicaid/Medicare Advantage plans); private equity-backed home care operators