Ending Hunger in America, 2014 Hunger Report Full Report | Page 84

iStock Home health care services for the elderly is one of the fastest growing fields of employment, while it remains one of the lowest paid. expect them to invest in their own training without some guarantee of improvements in pay and working conditions. In 2002, Evelyn Coke, an adult care worker from New York, took her employer to court. She had worked for years without days off or overtime pay and 70-hour weeks for less than the minimum wage.85 Like restaurant servers, adult care workers were not covered by the minimum wage and overtime protections in the Fair Labor Standards Act, because the law still had a “companionship exemption” for those who care for elderly and disabled people. This is a relic of the past that shows how adult care work was traditionally viewed—as though things had not changed since the days when it meant that a woman from the neighborhood would come to read to an elderly person whose sight was failing. In 2007, the case reached the Supreme Court, which ruled that it was up to the White House to change the compensation policies for adult care workers.86 In 2011, the Obama administration proposed a rule change to remove the minimum wage exemption. During the review phase, the Department of Labor received close to 26,000 comments, overwhelmingly in support of the change.87 Lobbying against the rule change was the extremely profitable home care industry.88 Approximately 70 percent of adult care workers are employed by home care agencies.89 The Department of Labor estimated that the additional costs of covering adult care workers under federal minimum wage standards would be less than 0.1 percent of the industry’s $84 billion in revenues.90 In September 2013, the Obama administration announced it was extending minimum wage and overtime protections to the adult care workers, although the change will not go into effect until January 2015. “These new rules are a major victory for the 2.5 million home care workers in America, and the millions more who will be needed to meet America’s growing need over the next decades,” said Sarita Gupta, executive director of Jobs with Justice and American Rights at Work. “By extending basic labor protections to in-home care workers, the Department of Labor has helped pave the way for strong, sustainable growth of the care workforce.”91 One person who did not see this day arrive was Evelyn Coke. She died in 2009 at the age of 74. An Honest Day’s Pay For some time now, policymakers have understood that low-wage work does not pay enough to support a family. As early as the 1970s, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) was used to supplement low wages. The EITC offsets federal payroll and income taxes. It has enjoyed bipartisan support because it rewards work. Its explicit objective is to reward 74? Chapter 2 n Bread for the World Institute