Reply to Au Pair just asked for more money

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have been following this thread. Is it legal to hire an American to watch your children but pay less than minimum wage? If you let them live in your in law suite or finished basement and provided food and a car?

There just seems like nothing between an AP and a nanny, which is out of reach for many. [/quote]

Yes, because in that scenario you would be deducting the cost of room, board, and transportation- that’s thousands of dollars per year. [/quote]

No, DoL allows deduction of $77/wk max: $35 for room. Kamala Harris Bill is pending that should put stop
to abuses. https://www.harris.senate.gov/news/press-releases/harris-jayapal-announce-domestic-workers-bill-of-rights

A live-in nanny should receive the same rate of pay you would consider for a live-out caregiver. The fact that they receive room and board shouldn’t lessen their pay.

According to the International Nanny Association’s 2017 Salary and Benefits Survey, the national average hourly rate for a full-time nanny is $19.14/hour. There wasn’t much difference in pay rate for live-in and live-out employees.

Live-in nannies are considered hourly workers and need to be paid the highest applicable minimum wage of the federal, state, and local rates.

As mentioned, they are paid for all hours they’re on duty and “on call.” If your live-in nanny needs to be at your home and isn’t free to leave, then they need to be paid for those hours.[/quote] 
Of course they can leave when they are not on duty. I don’t do curfews and expect my au pair to show up at the agreed time like I do and I do not care what time she comes home as long as she is ready to go at 8 am. How do you possibly justify a deduction of $77/wk? That is ... $308 per month for all living expenses including room and board and food????? I’m sorry but that’s insane. Let’s do the math for the equivalent live out worker.

At $15 hr and 45 hrs a week that is $2700. I assume it costs $850/ mo min for a private room and private bath and all utilities. Let’s assume a low $15/day food budget which is another $450/mo. What do you think car insurance costs for a foreign young person? It cost us an extra $100/mo to add her to our plan so let’s assume that as well. A phone plan can be $30-$50. 20 year old girls do not live without smartphones. Now you are at $1430 per mo for ordinary living expenses. I’m ignoring gas for discretionary purposes but that’s a real cost as well. That is a net $1270/ mo or $317/wk. that doesn’t seem unreasonable to me for 45 hrs a week and is specifically what we pay. But $500+ per week mathematically just does not make sense.

This is lawyers trying to do math comparing market rates for wages (au pairs are not the same as nannies trained in childcare getting $25-$30 per hr to schedule little larlo to the max so yes $15 is a market rate) with marginal costs of food / housing etc. The net number does not make sense. In your scenario, any live out worker is basically getting screwed if live in workers get paid the same hourly rate since they pay real market rates for food/housing.

Also, what about au pairs working 20 hours a week? They would be making $1200 a month at those hourly rates and couldn’t afford to live here.

I am all for domestic worker protections. But au pairs are not the same. And I would never, ever charge my au pair for dinners out with the family on the weekend, plane tickets for vacations with the family (and no she does not work), or for weekend outings like going apple picking. That would feel extremely wrong and not be a familial type relationship. And i don’t know if you actually know any au pairs, but mine would be devastated if I told her we were going on vacation without her- she would absolutely feel excluded. [/quote]

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