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The Obama Department of Labor has been working for the last four years to include senior home-care workers employed by third parties under the Fair Labor Standards Act's minimum wage and overtime provisions. There was also a parallel effort to redefine the services a bona fide senior companion caregiver could provide to align with the Congress' intent of the 1974 expansion of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Topics: companionship services, companionship exemption, senior home care, senior home caregiver, senior home-care workers
HWS received the following update today from Legally Nanny, a foremost legal expert in household employment law in California and wanted to immediately update California household employers.
Topics: companionship services, california household employment, senior home care, senior home-care workers
Quality senior care is a challenge millions of families are facing as our aging family members require increasing amounts of personal care services.
Topics: elder care, aging in place, senior care, companionship services
Think about the conflicts you encounter in everyday life, and you’ll recognize the role of details in smooth operations and peaceful negotiations. This is the foundation of a senior home care work agreement.
Topics: elder care, senior caregivers, companionship services, senior home care
Employment law, wage and hour law, and payroll tax requirements for privately employed senior caregivers are governed by a complex assortment of Federal and state rules and legislation. The scope of duties is used on the Federal level to distinguish companionship care - exempt from Federal minimum wage and overtime protections - from other domestic services that do enjoy FLSA protections.
Topics: companionship services, companionship exemption, senior home care, senior home-care workers
Your first step is to do a needs assessment. The more specifically you can identify your senior’s needs – physical, medical and emotional – the better equipped you will be to define a job description for an in-home senior care professional.
Topics: elder care, senior caregivers, companionship services
As more and more senior are opting to "age in place", the direct hiring of senior caregivers are being sought out by family members. Families have questions about minimum wage, overtime and questions about what constitutes payable hours during the care day. Often, they are not aware of the tax obligations of employing a household employee.
Topics: elder care, senior caregivers, companionship services, companionship exemption
With Americans living longer lives and often needing assistance to ensure their well-being, more people are providing care for an aging family member. New additions to our vocabulary like ‘sandwich generation’ and ‘caregiver stress,’ have emerged from this reality.
Topics: elder care, senior caregivers, Senior Health guide, companionship services
Each year, projections for the average life expectancy of Americans trend up. There are differences by gender, a man reaching age 65 today can expect to live, on average, until age 84; for a woman the average expectation is 86. In addition to these averages from the Social Security Administration, about one out of every four 65-year-olds today is expected to live past age 90, and one out of 10 past age 95.
Topics: elder care, senior caregivers, companionship services
The US Department of Labor on September 17, 2013 issued revised rules within the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) that impact employers of senior caregivers that go into effect January 1, 2015. A key revision is the definition of what constitutes companionship care.
Today, all senior caregivers who provide companionship care in the private home of an individual with disabilities or the elderly are exempt from the minimum wage and overtime protections of the FLSA, and are defined as providing “companion care services.” The tasks and duties that constitute companionship care today are rather broad, and the rules that go into effect January 2015 significantly narrow the tasks and duties definitions. While some privately employed companions will continue to fit the designation of companion caregivers, the new rules will not permit agency-employed caregivers to be classified as companions, period.
Agency-employed caregivers will all be covered by minimum wage and overtime FLSA protections. Agency-employed caregivers may not be classified as companions for wage and hour compliance. Only privately employed senior caregivers providing bona fide companionship care services may qualify for this exemption.
Topics: elder care, companionship services, companionship exemption