The Obama administration just announced that home-care workers qualify for federal wage protections under the Fair Labor Standards Act. This is a big deal. Most of these workers already make at least the minimum wage, but they don't qualify for overtime salaries because they were literally classified as babysitters.
According to the Department of Labor, there are about 2 million workers that qualify for the new protections --nearly 50 percent of whom are minorities.
It's not surprising that a job classification dominated by minorities (and women, but that's another story) was exempt from the FLSA. The exemptions were part of the price that Jim-Crow-era Southern politicians extracted as their price for the passage of much of the New Deal. They wanted relief from the Great Depression, but only would agree to social programs that did not interfere with the peculiar institutions of the south that kept African Americans on the bottom of the labor and social structure. (It's also why every Southern Democrat joined pro-business owner Republicans in backing the anti-labor Taft-Hartley Act) For those looking for a good history on the subject, Ira Katznelson's When Affirmative Action Was White details the whole depressing process.
Today's long-overdue step eradicates a small part of the poisonous legacy over despite the opposition of for-profit nursing homes.
Finally: Elections have consequences. This wouldn't have happened in a Mitt Romney administration.
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