Summary of new proposed AP rules from State Dep't
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Anonymous
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I’d love to know how all the Nannie’s/au pairs/babysitters on here plan to pay for childcare once they have kids.
They’re always saying parents are cheap for hiring au pairs. Unless you marry someone very wealthy you’ll be in the same boat. Not everyone has the income to pay $1k a week or more for childcare. It doesn’t make them cheap. |
Anonymous
| I am myself what is fairly described as "rich" (salaries of approx $1M a year between my husband and me). I have had an au pair for about 10 years because my daughter has been in preschool/elementary school, we like having a young person around our house to interact with our daughter as an older sister would, and we have the space to comfortably house her. The AP takes our daughter to and from school and plays/helps with homework until we get home from work and have dinner as a family (I cook or we order in). She has a long break in the middle of the day and works 1-2 weekends a month, usually for a date night but sometimes also for daytime if we have something happening. This has been the job since we started 10 years ago when our daughter was 2. I think the APs have been great for us not because they are cheaper than a nanny, but because of the "big sister" factor. |
Anonymous
Prob ask to take their kids to work and be shocked when employers don’t want to pay them the same amount as working without their child. |
Anonymous
I think your family will be able to comfortably afford $750/week for this privilege. You can continue in the program and it's the audience the DoS is aiming for now with the new regulations. For most families, this isn't the case. My opinion is 'fair enough' if that is what the DoS wants to do. It's unfortunate that they will exclude about 85% of the families who currently host and reduce the amount of visas offered to about 4,000 versus the 20,000 they issue now. It's also going to be a pain for your family to have to calculate and keep track of hours but you would have to do that if you chose to hire a nanny instead of an au pair. For many families, they will opt for daycare. Once again 'fair enough' to the DoS but it's unfortunate and will likely kill the au pair program as it is now for most middle class families. |
Anonymous
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One of the problems with the new rules is that it doesn't account for families with older kids that use APs only 15 hours a week (or even less).
The new stipend is higher, and even with room/board deduction, between the stipend, hourly rate, and agency fee, we are looking at more than $30 hour. |
Anonymous
It can be a basic work cell, picked up at the start of shift and handed over at the end, no calls except as related to work. Basic plans are available for under $30 on dumb phones. Insurance, gas for work, and vehicle for work would be at employer discretion and only if needed for the job. Gym and other things are purely for her convenience. |
Anonymous
Nannies usually do one of the following: -stay home (especially if they planned ahead and/or have a partner making enough to afford this) -take their child to work -switch to working at daycare until the child is in school -pay for daycare -run a home daycare High end nannies can sometimes afford to hire a basic nanny for their child, especially if the other parent has a schedule that results in fewer hours needed for their nanny. APs don't have their own children. None of this has any bearing on whether the AP program changes. |
Anonymous
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We are on our 4th AP. We will not get another AP if the changes pass. But that's fine. We will find an afterschool babysitter or put the kids in aftercare.
It will be pretty amusing when none of these girls get to come to the U.S. anymore. They think they are getting a good change, when in fact they are going to get nothing at all because no families will want an AP anymore (except for very few who will only want perfect english speakers and perfect drivers-- that's like 1% of the APs out there). |
Anonymous
| Now that we are solidly in 2024, anyone know when we will hear updates on the status of these proposed changes? |
Anonymous
| Well this is all rather discouraging to hear…on our 3rd aupair…6th year in. Mostly have her drive the kids to sports at night and make dinner. We are planning on getting another one this June 2024 which sounds like she may be grandfathered in for the 1 year at least. It does make it unaffordable for us with the new changes. |
Anonymous
| There’s going to be a higher demand for Nannies with APs going away. |
Anonymous
| "Big sister", my foot! Not in my worst nightmare... |
Anonymous
Bingo. This is why all of this is happening. The lawsuit in Massachusetts, the lobbying to get these changes approved— all come from domestic workers organizations who are looking out for their nanny constituents. They say au pairs fall into that category, but in reality, they want to kill the program or at least make the wages high so that nannies are not competing. |
Anonymous
The latest survey of host family has proven otherwise. The results show that the majority of host families will use daycare options versus hiring nannies. I think that even in the scenario of older children, it wasn't nannies that were the choice on the survey results, it was part time babysitters since typically it was less than 20 hours a week. Let me see if I can find the graph. I don't like in MA, but maybe someone will chime in on whether the nannies there are now living the life financially. I think they were before the law changes there anyway. |
Anonymous
| Our plan is to use college babysitters for afterschool hours. And we will save a lot of money by not having an AP. |