Sponsors (18)
Official title: Enhance the rights of domestic employees, and for other purposes.
Introduced December 9, 2025 by Kirsten Gillibrand · Last progress December 9, 2025
The bill extends comprehensive federal labor protections, enforcement, and supports to millions of domestic workers and helps stabilize access to home‑based Medicaid services, but does so at the cost of higher wages and compliance costs for households and governments, implementation complexity, and potential employment or access shifts as pay and budget pressures play out.
Approximately 2+ million domestic workers (nannies, home health and personal care aides, live‑in aides) gain explicit federal labor protections — minimum wage, overtime, paid sick leave, paid rest/meal breaks, anti‑retaliation, written terms, and access to enforcement remedies — improving pay and legal remedies.
Medicaid beneficiaries (seniors, people with disabilities) and families are more likely to maintain or expand home‑and‑community‑based services because the bill stabilizes the care workforce and increases federal Medicaid matching for HCBS, protecting access to in‑home care.
Workers get stronger enforcement and support infrastructure — expanded DOL enforcement tools and penalties, a national hotline, grants, a Task Force, and a worker‑focused Board — increasing ability to detect, deter, and remedy labor violations.
Households and small employers face substantially higher labor costs (higher wages, overtime, paid sick leave, meal/rest pay, severance, payroll taxes), increasing household expenses and potentially raising costs for in‑home care.
Small household employers, family caregivers, and small providers will face significant administrative and compliance burdens (recordkeeping, tax withholding, written agreements, multi‑language notices), which are unfamiliar and time‑consuming for private households.
Some employers may respond to higher costs by reducing hours, hiring fewer domestic workers, or substituting informal arrangements, which could reduce job opportunities or incomes for some domestic workers.
Based on analysis of 20 sections of legislative text.
Creates a federal domestic workers bill of rights: extends FLSA coverage to live‑in workers, adds privacy/scheduling/meal/rest protections, creates an advisory Board, and provides a temporary FMAP increase for Medicaid home services.
Creates a federal "domestic workers bill of rights" that extends core labor protections to domestic employees (including live‑in workers), sets rules for termination, scheduling, privacy, meal/rest breaks, and access to communications, and requires employers to meet new notice and accommodation requirements. It establishes a Domestic Employee Standards Board to advise the Secretary, directs rulemaking authority to implement the law, and provides a temporary 5‑year FMAP (Medicaid) increase to help States cover higher costs for home‑ and community‑based services delivered by covered domestic employees.