DOL's Wage Rule For Home Care Workers On Hold

A federal judge has scuttled key aspects of the U.S. Labor Department's (DOL's) rule that would have extended the federal Fair Labor Standards Act's minimum wage and overtime requirements to many home care workers. The rule was to have gone into effect January 1, 2015. 

Although DOL has appealed the court's rulings, for now, home care agencies may anticipate that DOL will not be enforcing those requirements as to home care aides and personal care attendants who fall within that law's companionship and live-in-domestic exemptions under the regulations that DOL sought to change.

Regulation Was Controversial
In recent weeks, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a series of rulings that blocked the most controversial aspects of the DOL's amended FLSA rule on the companionship and live-in exemptions from going into effect. Here is a short recap: