Fair Care Employment

By paying a fair wage and overtime, you are ensuring that your employee has what they need to sustain themselves and their families. For many, it can be a challenge to align what’s fair with what we feel we can afford, but by offering your employee the highest wage you can, you show how much you value their work and are investing in your own household.

General Best Practices

• When calculating wages, consider the cost of living and calculate what a living wage might look like in your area. You can use the MIT Living Wage calculator to help you set a wage at https://livingwage.mit.edu.
• Provide (at least) annual cost of living (COLA) raises.
• It is fair practice to increase a wage when responsibilities increase. For example, if you have a second child or if you ask a cleaner to clean the garage.
• If you employ a worker for very few hours per week, compensate your employee for transportation time.
• Prepare to pay overtime pay (1.5 x the hourly wage) whenever your employee works over 40 hrs/week or over eight hours/day.
• Consider providing an end-of-year bonus at your discretion.
• If your employee spends their own funds for work-related expenses, cover those costs! For example, compensate an attendant or childcare provider if they use their own vehicle and gasoline to do errands for you.

House Cleaner Employment

• For house cleaner employers, a general guide for providing living wages in metropolitan areas is to pay no less than $20-$30/hour for no less than three hours per visit for self-employed workers. This amount takes into account that some house cleaners often have long commutes between jobs and don’t receive most benefits. 
• For house cleaner employers, you should also consider the degree of difficulty of the work, such as the size of the home and if there are any deep cleaning tasks like cleaning an oven, fridge, baseboards, inside windows or between window panes, or doing laundry. If you expect cleaning products to be provided by the cleaner, this cost should be included in their compensation.
• If you need​ ​to​ ​reschedule​ ​or​ ​cancel​ ​a​ ​cleaning​ ​appointment​ ​or are going out of town, consider that the housecleaner may lose opportunities to work with other clients because they are scheduled with you. Many cleaners are flexible with rescheduling as long as you notify them within a reasonable amount of time, usually 48 hours before the scheduled job. Decide on a timeframe that works for both of you and commit to pay for their time if you can’t meet your notification commitment.

Childcare Employment

• For childcare providers/nannies, Hand in Hand recommends a base pay of $18/hour for one child. Please keep in mind the cost of living in your area as you determine a fair and family supporting wage. You can use the MIT Living Wage calculator to help you set a wage: https://livingwage.mit.edu.
• It is fair practice to increase a wage when responsibilities increase, for example if you have a second child.
• If you employ a worker for very few hours per week, compensate your employee for their transportation time.

Home Attendant, Eldercare, or Personal Care Attendant Employment

• For home attendants, Hand in Hand recommends a base pay of $18/hour. Please keep in mind the cost of living in your area as you determine a fair and family supporting wage. You can use the MIT Living Wage calculator to help you set a wage here: https://livingwage.mit.edu.
• It is fair practice to increase a wage when responsibilities increase.
• If you employ a worker for very few hours per week, compensate your employee for their transportation time.
• What if we don’t control wages or benefits? For those of us who employ caregivers, aides, or home attendants through our state or county’s Medicaid homecare programs, we don’t decide wages or paid time off. But there are still ways we can support a fair wage for our employees, including supporting unions and joining campaigns to advocate for higher wages and better benefits. We can also find ways to support our employees’ well-being by offering them a bonus out of our own pockets when we can or being flexible with hours and schedule. If you have other ideas for how to do this, we’d love to hear them!

Breaks and Sleep Time

• Workers should be entitled to a 10-minute break after 4 hours of work and at least a 30-minute unpaid meal break after 5 hours of work. These breaks should be uninterrupted. If it is not possible for there to be an uninterrupted break, the worker should be paid overtime (1.5 x the hourly wage) during their break period.
• Live-in domestic workers employed by private households should have at least 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep.

Time off—including medical and sick leave—will ensure that your employee is rested, healthy, and ready to do their job well.

Here are some guiding principles for offering paid time off:

• For full-time employees, provide at least 5 paid sick days per year; for part-time employees, provide 1 hour for every 30 hours worked.
• For full-time employees, provide at least 2 weeks of paid vacation per year; for part-time employees, provide 1 hour for every 20 hours worked.
• Any unused vacation should be paid out as additional pay when it’s time for an annual review or when the worker leaves the job—whichever the employee and employer agree to.
• Provide the standard 8 paid government holidays or agreed upon holidays of the employee’s choice. If an employee agrees to work on any of these holidays, they should be compensated one-and-a-half times their usual hourly rate.
• Try to provide at least 6 weeks of paid family or medical leave with guaranteed employment upon return.

Visit your city/state labor department website for additional laws and standards that apply specifically to your area.

Creating clear expectations through open and respectful communication is the foundation for the relationship between you and the childcare provider, house cleaner, or home attendant you employ. Here are some essential elements that provide clarity in your home:

• A mutually-agreed upon written work agreement shaped by you and the worker you are employing helps ensure everyone is on the same page about job duties, benefits, and needs. See our sample childcare agreement, nanny share agreement, house cleaner agreement, and home attendant agreement.
• Regular check-ins provide you and your employee the opportunity to share what has been going well and areas that might need improvement.
• Pay attention to the little things, like greeting your employee in the morning, returning home on time, asking about their family, and thanking them regularly.