This Black History Month, we celebrate the progress achieved for Black communities, including Black women workers. Black women’s labor has historically been undervalued and underpaid. And the fight to ensure our laws protect and promote economic security for Black women workers is a story marked by progress and setbacks.
The decades-long fight to strengthen wage protections for domestic workers – and Trump’s current efforts to undermine them – are just one part of that story.
Where We Started: Domestic Workers – Overwhelmingly Black Women Living in the South – Were Deliberately Excluded from Basic Federal Wage Protections
During the New Deal era, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), landmark legislation designed to address substandard working conditions by setting a federal minimum wage and overtime standards. But, as enacted, the law excluded domestic workers, as well as other occupations dominated by Black workers, from its protections. At the time of the FLSA debate and passage, it was well understood that these exclusions from the law were an implicit way to deny Black workers protections that were available to white workers.
Such exclusions were built on the exploitation and devaluation of Black labor and the desire to prop up the Jim Crow South.
Southern lawmakers, who wielded considerable power in Congress during the New Deal era and felt politically unaccountable to disenfranchised Black workers, used their power to protect against threats to the Jim Crow South. In 1930, more than half of the Black population in America lived in the South, and Black employment in this region was concentrated in agricultural and domestic work. In 1930, an estimated 79 percent of domestic workers in the South were Black. Post slavery, Black women had few options for employment other than domestic work, which was viewed as unskilled and inefficient.
Southern lawmakers were concerned that wage protections for Black workers would signal equal dignity and worth, which would dismantle the racial and economic caste system of Jim Crow. By excluding domestic workers, lawmakers codified the racial and gender wage inequities that devalue and exploit Black women and their labor.
How We Progressed: Some Domestic Workers Secure Basic Federal Wage Protections
Basic federal wage protections for domestic workers came only after decades of advocacy. A “broadened Fair Labor Standards Act to include all areas of employment which are presently excluded” was among the list of demands of the 1963 March on Washington. During legislative hearings from 1971 to 1973, civil rights organizations, women’s organizations, and labor unions urged Congress to extend FLSA protections to domestic workers on the grounds of racial, gender, and wage justice.
The fight to include domestic workers in the FLSA’s coverage was often centered on and led by Black women. Representative Shirley Chisholm (D-NY) – the first Black woman in Congress – stood at the forefront of mobilization in Congress, advocating for their inclusion in recognition of the impact on Black women. Rep. Chisholm noted that Black women were at the head of half of poor Black families and that the majority of these women worked in domestic service with pay below the poverty line.
In 1974, Congress finally corrected the racist and sexist exclusion of domestic workers, extending minimum wage and overtime protections to these workers. However, these amendments exempted live-in domestic workers from overtime protections and exempted casual babysitters and domestic workers who provide companionship services from minimum wage and overtime protections, giving the Labor Secretary the power to define what “companionship services” means.
However, decades later, in 2013, the Obama Labor Department took action to ensure its regulations were in line with Congress’s goal of protecting domestic workers. The Labor Department issued a rule that set out new definitions of companionship services, extending overtime and minimum wage protections to nearly 2 million home care workers, ensuring that professionals who provide critical health and personal care services are properly paid.
Where We Are Headed: Trump’s Labor Department Plans to Strip Millions of Domestic Workers of Wage Protections
Rather than working with Congress to build on progress for domestic workers, last summer, the Trump Labor Department proposed stripping millions of home care workers of minimum wage and overtime protections by rescinding the 2013 Obama rule.
It’s likely no mistake that the Trump Labor Department’s proposal to rollback protections makes no mention of the demographic makeup of the impacted workforce. But to this day, domestic workers remain concentrated in the South. Black women are still overrepresented in the occupation, with immigrant women and Hispanic women now overrepresented in the workforce as well.
It’s likely no mistake that the Trump Labor Department’s proposal also makes no mention of how much a rollback would cost this vulnerable group of workers. But the 2013 Obama rule was associated with a significant boost in hourly wages and a $110 increase in total weekly earnings for agency-employed home care workers.
It’s also no mistake that an administration that’s been so antagonistic to women, people of color, Black history and labor appears unconcerned that its actions would leave Black women workers that much worse off.
Where We Should Be Heading Instead: Eliminating the Remaining Racist Exclusions of Domestic Workers from Wage Protections and Boosting Pay
Domestic workers remain among the most vulnerable workers in the country. In 2023, the median earnings for direct care workers were just $16.72 per hour, with an estimated 37 percent of the workforce living in or near poverty.
To support economic security for domestic workers, Congress should eliminate the overtime exemption for live-in domestic workers, as included under the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights Act. Congress should also advance wage-boosting policies, such as raising the federal minimum wage and strengthening overtime standards.
Our nation’s domestic workers – and the Black women who are overrepresented in the work – deserve respect and fair pay. Rather than undermining our history of progress on wage protections, we should work to build on it.
