Paying au pair for extra time? what do you pay hourly?

[Anonymous]

You are crying over $15 an hour? That's a bargain! Just pay her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know that it is against the program rules but with our previous au pairs (who were always interested in making extra money) we paid extra when we got home 30 mins to 1 hour late (we always asked first). Some weeks it was 2- 2.5 hours extra. Some weeks none. We let them plop our elementary school kids in front of the tv and didn't require any work during the time. We usually paid $10 an hour w no complaints. Our current au pair (who unfortunately is not great at all, we got her on rematch last month after our au pair quit and went home) said she'll only do it for $15 an hour. (We have other sitters we can call for $15.) I was just curious what the rate is in the Bethesda/SS area for those who have their au pairs work extra on occasion.

No wonder your last AP quit. You suck and are miserably cheap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I follow the rules and pay $10/hour at a max of 45 hours/$450/week.

If your AP told me you were pressuring her to work over hours AND pressuring her not to take market rate I would help her get you kicked out of the program.

I’m an employment lawyer.

What rule is this" Are you saying 1800/mo, minus agency fees and the rest goes to the AP?

Who said it's a "rule"? I pay my APs $10/hr varied by how many hours we use each week over the minimum of 25/$250. So as a general proposition I agree with OP that an AP's time, given the other perks of the job, is worth about $10/hr.

If OP and the AP agreed on overtime, I wouldn't say anything, even tho it's illegal, but trying to bully the AP down is a bad look.

I do something similar, but am in Virginia and keep meticulous records of hours worked. I view the stipend ad a minimum. As someone with a moral compass, I pay minimum wage. One the AP hits 27.58/hrs, minimum wage kicks in at 7.25 every hour after than and then she is paid time and a half for hours 40-45. I'd never ask for her to work over 45. Max pay is $344/wk.

OP is gross

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I follow the rules and pay $10/hour at a max of 45 hours/$450/week.

If your AP told me you were pressuring her to work over hours AND pressuring her not to take market rate I would help her get you kicked out of the program.

I’m an employment lawyer.

What rule is this" Are you saying 1800/mo, minus agency fees and the rest goes to the AP?

Who said it's a "rule"? I pay my APs $10/hr varied by how many hours we use each week over the minimum of 25/$250. So as a general proposition I agree with OP that an AP's time, given the other perks of the job, is worth about $10/hr.

If OP and the AP agreed on overtime, I wouldn't say anything, even tho it's illegal, but trying to bully the AP down is a bad look.

I do something similar, but am in Virginia and keep meticulous records of hours worked. I view the stipend ad a minimum. As someone with a moral compass, I pay minimum wage. One the AP hits 27.58/hrs, minimum wage kicks in at 7.25 every hour after than and then she is paid time and a half for hours 40-45. I'd never ask for her to work over 45. Max pay is $344/wk.

OP is gross

And that’s at minimum wage, with the normal stipend as the minimum? Thank you for showing that it’s less than $150 extra to meet federal minimum wage law

[Anonymous]

So what do people do when the metro runs late and you're late? The red line has gotten stuck a few times when I've headed home. We pay extra for the inconvenience. It happens sometimes. We have paid $15 an hour when it happens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So what do people do when the metro runs late and you're late? The red line has gotten stuck a few times when I've headed home. We pay extra for the inconvenience. It happens sometimes. We have paid $15 an hour when it happens.

You schedule things so that your AP goes over at most 2 times during a quarter. You know that metro can run late. So figure in 30 minutes extra every evening. The 45 hours is a maximum, not a ball park figure!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So what do people do when the metro runs late and you're late? The red line has gotten stuck a few times when I've headed home. We pay extra for the inconvenience. It happens sometimes. We have paid $15 an hour when it happens.

You schedule things so that your AP goes over at most 2 times during a quarter. You know that metro can run late. So figure in 30 minutes extra every evening. The 45 hours is a maximum, not a ball park figure!

This. If you’re trying to max out 45 hours every week or 10 hours every day you’re going to end up breaking the rules.

We have blown the cap about 4 times in all our years of hosting and it was truly exceptional circumstances (like once I was stranded on Amtrak for 3 hours). Not because we have good luck but because we plan for things to not work perfectly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So what do people do when the metro runs late and you're late? The red line has gotten stuck a few times when I've headed home. We pay extra for the inconvenience. It happens sometimes. We have paid $15 an hour when it happens.

You schedule things so that your AP goes over at most 2 times during a quarter. You know that metro can run late. So figure in 30 minutes extra every evening. The 45 hours is a maximum, not a ball park figure!

This. If you’re trying to max out 45 hours every week or 10 hours every day you’re going to end up breaking the rules.

We have blown the cap about 4 times in all our years of hosting and it was truly exceptional circumstances (like once I was stranded on Amtrak for 3 hours). Not because we have good luck but because we plan for things to not work perfectly.

Yes, exactly. We schedule ours an hour later than we plan on needing her every night. For us that is a total of 40 hours weekly (so reality is 35 hours if all goes perfectly). If I am running 10 minutes late from work, no big deal. We are honest about the reality of the hours and communicate about the arrival time, whether it is early or late. It also gives us some time to chat about the day and the kids when I get home and I do not have to feel like I am imposing on her personal/off time. It has worked well for us and the au pairs see this as getting off early (bonus free time!). I think if I only scheduled 7 hours daily they would resent all those times I am 10 minutes late and my experience with child providers of all types (including very highly paid professional nannies) is that it is unacceptable for the parents to be late (even if you are early on most days).

[Anonymous]

our AP is working 18 hours this week, and we still had to hire a sitter this weekend.
we have an event saturday night and want ap at our childs birithday party sunday to help.

So we scheduled AP for sunday, hired a sitter for saturday.

That is the way the program is supposed to work, even though we really do not need an AP except for teacher work days, sick days, school breaks - we cannot have ap work both days of the weekend.

As for 45 hours, we never come close - even during summer AP maxes at 40.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I follow the rules and pay $10/hour at a max of 45 hours/$450/week.

If your AP told me you were pressuring her to work over hours AND pressuring her not to take market rate I would help her get you kicked out of the program.

I’m an employment lawyer.

What rule is this" Are you saying 1800/mo, minus agency fees and the rest goes to the AP?

Who said it's a "rule"? I pay my APs $10/hr varied by how many hours we use each week over the minimum of 25/$250. So as a general proposition I agree with OP that an AP's time, given the other perks of the job, is worth about $10/hr.

If OP and the AP agreed on overtime, I wouldn't say anything, even tho it's illegal, but trying to bully the AP down is a bad look.

I do something similar, but am in Virginia and keep meticulous records of hours worked. I view the stipend ad a minimum. As someone with a moral compass, I pay minimum wage. One the AP hits 27.58/hrs, minimum wage kicks in at 7.25 every hour after than and then she is paid time and a half for hours 40-45. I'd never ask for her to work over 45. Max pay is $344/wk.

OP is gross

And that’s at minimum wage, with the normal stipend as the minimum? Thank you for showing that it’s less than $150 extra to meet federal minimum wage law

Yes, so it takes approx 27.5 hrs to hit $200 at 7.25/hr.

Yes and the extra 144 is ONLY if someone hits 45 hrs.