On July 25, 2025, the Wage & Hour Division (WHD) at the U.S. Department of Labor announced that WHD investigators would stop enforcing the Department’s 2013 regulation extending the protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to many home care workers.  

Prior to 2013, many care workers who were working in homes/domestic settings were not covered by the FLSA. The home care workforce often had persistently low wages, long hours, and difficult working conditions. The regulation issued by DOL in 2013 extended minimum wage and overtime protections to about 2 million of these workers at the time – people doing essential work to provide in-home care to seniors, people with disabilities, and more.  

On July 2, DOL announced a proposed rule to formally overturn minimum wage and overtime rights for these workers, providing the opportunity for the public to provide comments on the change for 60 days. The July 25 enforcement decision essentially makes that proposed rule preemptively effective for many workers who would otherwise rely on the DOL to enforce their rights.