Home Care Agencies

For-profit home care agencies have an important role in getting in-home services to seniors and people with disabilities. But they are also responsible for many of the problems in home care. Home care agencies pay caregivers low wages; some don’t even pay their workers for all the time that they work.  Low pay, no benefits, and failure to abide by wage and hour law, lead to turnover and make it difficult for clients to get and to keep the caregiver they need.

Lee’s Industries and Total Health Home Care, for example, receive between $14 and $21 an hour to provide care, yet they only pay caregivers about $8 an hour. 

Tracy Bishop

“I work hard caring for fragile seniors and people with disabilities.  When Total cuts corners on pay, they hurt their clients and they hurt my family. I quit because I had no choice.”
Tracy Bishop, caregiver and plaintiff in the Total case

Caregivers rarely receive health insurance or benefits like sick time, vacation or a retirement plan.

If that weren’t bad enough, both of these agencies have been sued by their workers for failing to pay for every hour worked. Because Lee’s Industries systematically under-counted hours, some workers didn’t receive overtime that they were owed. Some at Lee’s were even paid below minimum wage.

Building a better home care system means holding providers accountable.

  • Lee's Industries

    Home caregivers who work for Lee’s Industries (Philadelphia, PA) filed suit Wednesday, January 17, 2007, asking the judge to stop Lee’s Industries’ practice of not paying caregivers for all of the time that they work.

  • Total Health Home Care

    On Thursday, May 18, 2006 caregivers at Total Health Home Care Corp (Upper Darby, PA) filed a lawsuit against their employer alleging the company has engaged in a “consistent pattern of non-payment or underpayment” of wages owed to workers.