Lawless, Matt

While I think this is a well intended rule change, I believe it will have the opposite of the desired effect. I own a home care agency. We employ the type of workers who this exemption effects. What I can tell you is that our clients will not pay overtime. Many of my clients have caregivers who work between 40-50 hours. They are able to afford this because of the overtime exemption. What they will do is either cut back hours or divide the shifts between two caregivers. The result of that will be a caregiver who was making a fair wage 40+ hours a week suddenly making the same wage, but for only 20+ hours a week. I fail to see where a caregiver having their salary cut in half is going to benefit them. This scenario applies to people who are being honest. What will also happen is more of these caregivers will just start working under the table. I think what the ultimate consequence of this rule change will be decreased wages for caregivers who are being honest, increased costs for elderly people who depend on caregivers to live independently, decreased tax revenues because more caregivers will be working under the table, and unfair competition for legitimate businesses like mine, because I can't compete with someone who is gaining an unfair advantage by breaking the law. I think this rule change is poorly conceived and has too many unintended consequences which will result in costing people jobs and the government tax revenues. Not to mention that hiring a caregiver under the table who has not submitted to a background check, who is not being screened for drug use, who is not covered by liability insurance or workman's comp puts vulnerable seniors and people with disabilities at personal and financial risk. I implore the DOL to rethink this rule change. There was a reason why caregivers were exempt from overtime pay. Being required to pay time and a half would simply make hiring a caregiver cost prohibitive for a person who is living on a fixed income.