How Will The New Minimum Wage Laws Affect “Cleaning Help”

Maybe there’s an exception for cleaning help. Ya know, just because.

The simple solution is to do it yourself. I mean, seriously, people can’t manage to clean a house once a week?

The minimum wage increase impacts those who are paying their domestic help on the books. As to needing domestic help, if you are a family with two working parents and many children it just makes sense to hire domestic help.

takahmamash: Don’t bother trying. I’ve tried too, and you’ll always get the same response. These rich people are so entitled that the assertion of performing basic life duties offends them and makes us the bad guys.

Why would performing basic life duties be offensive?
I mow the lawn, shovel snow, do painting and home repairs.

That said, Mrs. CTL is not well enough to do housework. She has been in ICU since Friday and has had 10 surgeries in the past year.
Until three years ago and the onset of ill health she cleaned our house.
I do the kUndry and cook

Taka, no some people either do not have the time or the physical ability.
I wish I could afford real cleaning help. Right now all I have is someone coming for 1h a week to do the really heavy work. The rest I do myself, and usually can’t move much by the time I am finished.

The law of $15 minimum wage is if you employ 10 workers or more!

I have always wondered about this- maybe someone in the CR knows: why is a (theoretical) cleaner who comes to my house once a week for 3-4h considered my employee while a plumber or handyman who comes to work in my home is an independent worker who offers a service and charges a fee? If it is the fact that one is regular and one only once in a while, then what about those who have someone like a personal trainer or massage therapist who make home visits and come on a regular basis? Why can companies have employees work on 1099s or as contract workers by the hour to avoid paying benefits, but a householder can’t do that for a cleaner?

I still tell the plumber what needs to be fixed.

Setting an appointment time is the same with the plumber as with the cleaner; neither of us can impose a time on the other, we have to negotiate a time that suits both of us. If I tell the cleaner to come Wednesdays from 9-1, and she’s busy then, I can’t make her come. And if the plumber tells me she’s available Tuesday between 11 and 4 and it doesn’t work for me, she can’t make me accept it. In both cases they tell me when they’re available, I tell them when I’m available, and we either find something that works for both or I look for someone else.

And what about the personal trainer, massage therapist, piano teacher, gardener, etc? The relationship is the same with all of them. So why is the cleaner different?