The Direct Care Job Quality Improvement Act aims to ensure that direct care workers receive minimum wage and overtime pay for their services and creates programs to improve recruitment, retention, and training of direct care workers.
The Direct Care Job Quality Improvement Act was introduced in both the House and Senate last week. H.R. 2341 was introduced by Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) and had 21 original co-sponsors, while the Senate version, S. 1273, was cosponsored by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), Sen. Robert Casey (D-Pa), and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT.) The bill would amend the Fair Standards Act, by removing exemptions that exclude direct care workers from minimum wage and overtime requirements.
The bill would also create programs such as the Direct Care Workforce Monitoring Program and the Direct Care Worker Recruitment, Retention, and Education Grant Program. The Direct Care Workforce Monitoring Program would monitor and evaluate the quality of services provided by direct care workers in federal health care programs as well as the stability and adequacy of the workforce to provide for current and future demand, The grants provided through the Direct Care Worker Recruitment, Retention, and Education Grant Program would be awarded to States and other entities to improve training programs, establish and expand recruitment programs, and develop approaches that better support care workers through creating new cost effective models for providing care.
Read the full bill: Direct Care Job Quality Improvement Act of 2011 (S.1273)
