Posted on 09/30/2013 11:50:16 AM PDT by jazusamo
Despite evidence from around the world that minimum wage laws can price low-skilled workers out of jobs, the U.S. Department of Labor is planning to extend minimum wage coverage to domestic workers, such as maids or those who drop in from time to time to do a few household chores for the sick and the elderly.
This coverage is scheduled to begin in January 2015 — that is, after the 2014 elections and nearly two years before the 2016 elections. Politicians show a lot of cleverness in protecting their own interests, even if they show very little wisdom as far as serving the public interest.
If making household workers subject to the minimum wage law is expected to produce good results, why not let those good results begin early, so that voters will know about them before the next election?
But, if this new extension of the minimum wage law opens a whole new can of worms — as is more likely — politicians who support this extension want to insulate themselves from a voter backlash. Hence artfully choosing January 2015 as the effective date, to minimize the political risks to themselves.
The reason this particular extension of the minimum wage law is likely to open a can of worms is that both household workers and those who employ them will face more complications than employers and employees in industry or commerce.
First of all, ill or elderly individuals who need someone to help them from time to time are not like employers who have a business that regularly hires people and may have a personnel department to handle all the paperwork and keep up with all the legal requirements when government bureaucrats are involved.
(Excerpt) Read more at creators.com ...
The Japanese will have a robot for that soon...
Dr. Sowell is the best and most articulate conservative observer of the American scene today. (OK, here it comes...) However, and I mean this as a comment on typical conservative commentary, if a Lib had written this it would be: Despite overwhelming, consensus evidence from everywhere in the world that minimum wage laws create insurmountable obstacles that make it absolutely impossible for the hapless, energetic low-skilled workers to find jobs so they can feed, clothe and provide necessary health care for their children, the U.S. Department of Labor is planning... Conservatives have to learn how to provide PERSUASIVE arguments where everything is stated emphatically. IMHO
Mostly, this will just make criminals out of the sick and elderly for their informal hiring practices.
U.S. to Include Home Care Aides in Wage and Overtime Law
It is crazy. What is next? 1099s? Tax withholdings?
Hiring a local person (not through an agency) to sit with an elderly person part time was one of the least expensive ways to deal with an elderly person needing assisted living. Now if they spend the night, so they work more than 40 hours in a week, they have to be paid overtime.
Sick and the elderly? I’m a single dad and my kids live with me full time. I was thinking about hiring someone to help me clean on a part-time basis but if I’m forced to treat them like an employee it won’t happen. Can’t afford it. Of course now it’s my fault that I’m putting someone else on the dole because I can’t afford it which means I can’t win for losing... frak.
Yes, it is absolutely crazy and I’m pretty sure some type notification to the IRS is coming, probably a 1099.
I don’t know a single person who hires a person to ‘clean house’ that pays ANYTHING but CASH.
They won’t report any of these persons, because they need the help for the harder chores & they won’t tip over the apple cart for all involved.
Wish I could find some of this work.
But it seems pretty gender discriminatory in the cleaning and helping elderly department.
Over the past couple of years with a back injury, I have hired pick-up people from my community to help me clean house, to paint, move heavy objects and to do gardening and mowing. I paid them $10 an hour. If the government starts interfering with micro-commerce like this, old people will be driven out of their homes for lack of maintaining them.
Mr Sowell If your intent is to help workers, how about advocating bringing the exported jobs back and getting the load of government. We have minimum wage jobs up the wazoo.
Where do they go for a job above the minimum wage? About everything you buy is made with labor done elsewhere.
There were no exported jobs
The American workers became noncompetitive and production moved to profitability.
Business is for profit, not for jobs. We are a capitalist nation, not a managed economy
This looks like a real trap for elderly people who hire someone to help them just get through life day to day. The federal bulletin says that if some specialized training would normally be needed to perform some of the duties (simple first aid training? hand out medications on schedule?) that the min. wage and hour laws apply. The employee who stays overnight a few times a week will suddenly be accruing big overtime at time and a half, based on the actual agreed hourly rate paid for the intended hours—not necessarily the legal minimum wage. The intended rules sound so vague, that the government bureaucrats could interpret them any way they like and let granny fight them in court. Obama’s Amerikka.
Well when business puts money before country, the country has to deal with the fallout. We are an American capitalist nation.
Paying these folks minimum wage could REDUCE wages of some of the home healthcare workers! Some agencies pay a home healthcare aid $10-12 per hour.
As far as ‘’maid service’’ goes, in many places this type of service is contract labor in the sense that the householder pays what the house keeper charges like you would a plumber. If you don’t like the price, hire someone else.
I resent the article listed with the OP for implying that this type of work is ‘’idiot’s work’’ (ideal for foreigners or the uneducated). He goes on to imply that people who stay at home are lazy druggies. His ignorance is glaring.
A Lazy drug addict may be the kind of person HIS mother was, but to imply that at home folks do nothing but watch tv or do drugs makes HIM an uneducated idiot. Any monkey can bang a keyboard too and probably come out with more logic than the author of that website has.
You have to know solvents..what to mix, what not to mix. What types of solvents work on what types of surfaces, and what types of solvents cause damage to those surfaces. If a person has certain health issues are there chemicals that you don’t use in their presence?
You have to know proper sanitization procedures..for example, you don’t wash the inside of the toilet with the same rag that you later wash the sink with. And you certainly don’t use said rag to turn around and was the dishes! Obvious to some, but not to others.
Proper lifting procedures is crucial before hurting yourself or your client.
Proper body washing techniques, and what are the limits of your expertise?
How do you wash a pair of jeans covered in automotive oils and grease to make them look like they just came off the store rack yesterday? Some people demand this level of quality and you have to know how to supply it.
Oh, they want you to help water the gardens? What kinds of plants demand a lot of water, or just a little, or none at all? How do you know what mixtures of gas or oils to use in a particular piece of machinery necessary to do the job they hired you to do?
The level of knowledge required can vary from job to job and place to place but you can’t send someone from a third world country whose used to peeing in a hole in the floor and who isn’t used to washing hands after toileting into an acute healthcare situation without risking serious infections.
Sometimes the client is fresh from the hospital after serious, debilitating illness and surgery and the last thing you want to do is put that person at risk for getting worse.
Sometimes you have mental health clients who are totally obsessive to the point where they pick the hairs out of their heads because one happened to fall out, while others are germaphobes who expect you to wash dishes wearing white gloves...I mean to say, you never know what you’ll encounter so you’d better NOT be an uneducated ignoramus as some people seem to think.
Here's another model
Thank you for your thoughtful post. You have illuminated what is involved with home care and needed capabilities. Great.
American Business has not put money before country.
If the businesses cease to exist because they have nothing to sell, the country fails. Profit makes everything go round.
The Soviets learned this lesson the hard way.
Thank you for the ping, Jaz.
The destruction and fundamental change of our country continues, and there is no one in the upper echelons of our country who will do a thing about it.
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