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. 2023 Aug;35(3):206-212.
doi: 10.1177/10848223221140502. Epub 2022 Dec 10.

Did Minimum Wage Policy Changes Impact Home Health Workforce?

Di Yan  1 , Helena Temkin-Greener  1 , Ronni Pavan  2 , Hao Yu  3 , Shubing Cai  1
Affiliations

Did Minimum Wage Policy Changes Impact Home Health Workforce?

Di Yan et al. Home Health Care Manag Pract. 2023 Aug.

Abstract

The shortage of home health aides has been exacerbated in recent years partially because of low wages. Minimum wage (MW) policy changes may alleviate this workforce shortage. This study examined the effects of MW policies on wages and employment of home health aides. We performed a county-level longitudinal analysis using 2012 to 2018 national data. The study cohort included 2,496 counties and focused on all workers in the home health industry. Outcome variables included wages and the employment of home health aides. Key variables of interest included the consumer price index adjusted state MW and a set of variables that captured the effect of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) extension. This study found that home health aides' hourly wages were $1.00 higher (p = .011) in states that increased their MWs from below $8 to above $10. The FLSA extension was associated with $1.15 higher wages in states with higher MWs (i.e., state MW above $10 in 2014). The FLSA extension was associated with higher employment of home health aides in less-competitive markets, rather than high- or average-competitive markets. This study suggests that state MW increases combined with the FLSA extension may help maintain the current home health workforce and improve their wages.

Keywords: Fair Labor Standards Act; employment; health workforce; home health; minimum wage; wages.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Home health industry workforce factors changes among state groups, from 2012 to 2018. Note. FLSA represents the 2015 Fair Labor Standards Act amendment which extends minimum wage and overtime protections to all home health aides employed by home care agencies and other third parties at the federal level. FLSA-control states included 14 states and Washington DC that have extended state minimum wage and overtime protections to DCWs before 2012. FLSA-affected states included the rest of the states, which extended minimum wage and overtime protections to DCWs after the 2015 FLSA (except that Hawaii extended minimum wage protection to home health workers in 2013).
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