@US au pair program overhauled....everybody hates it

[neverfstop]

This is really interesting & not something I see around me, but I think it could have the potential to be a good solution if families are getting cheaper childcare and young girls are paid a fair wage and not exploited.  Basically, it was a visa program that everybody agreed with broken & the changes that were made still aren't great...

19thnews.org/2024/03/au-pair-program-state-department-fix/ 


But any change feels fraught. Au pairs agree that the program underpays them, but would new labor protections turn them into child care workers and strip away the cultural exchange component? Many families also agree au pairs could be paid more, but would that lock them out of their only viable child care option? No one can quite figure out the balance.

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Currently, au pairs earn a minimum of $195.75 a week, an amount that hasn’t changed in 15 years. It works out to $4.35 an hour for 45 hours. Under the proposal, that could rise to as much as $720 a week, depending on cost of living and minimum wage laws in the city where the au pair works. The most families can currently deduct from those wages for room, board and meals is $130.54 — that amount would remain the same.

[Vespasia]

Please add an @ to the title

[rupertpenny]

I have hosted two au pairs and the system is crazy. If a host family decides the match isn’t working the au pair has only two weeks to find a new host before being kicked out of the country. The au pairs have very little say in where and how they live and many host families have pretty draconian rules.

We had a great experience, but the whole process is fraught. Childcare is so broken in this country.

[VillainV]

Many dual-military families (married couples who are both active duty) use Au Pairs due to inadequate child care on and around military bases, and these changes are making basically removing that as an option for most families.

[livinitup]

I think it’s wild that au pairs are being called “affordable” child care. I’m sure there are super special examples in the heap of au pair experience but growing up and living around NYC/Hamptons, au pair = wealthy family.

And only wealthy families. And it wasn’t some secret that the au pair was wildly underpaid.

[pixy0stix]

Good - the program is predatory.

I'm sorry that people won't be able to afford child care. But continuing to use young girls at way below cost of living wages, while pretending that it's a cultural exchange is not how we fix the problem. Indentured servitude should have ended decades ago.

[SusanBAnthony]

It doesn't seem cheap to me as it is. You have to provide room and board and most people have to buy a car. And then live with a teenager and teach a teenager with minimal childcare experience how to take care of kids.

Basically there is nothing appealing about it from either direction! (Looking from the outside, I've never had one).

The proposed 3-4x cost increase would result in the ~5 people I know definitely not using an au pair. It brings the cost to that of a professional nanny or nanny share (depending on how you calculate room and board and car) with none of the benefits.

Underpayment isn't a good solution, basically there are no good solutions or maybe killing the program all together is a good solution.

[macmars45]

pixy0stix those were my exact thoughts too.

The whole childcare system is broken. Young women no longer getting caught in the cross hairs of our broken system without money or a say in how they live their lives in our country sounds like a step in the right direction.

[janegold]

In Massachusetts, au pairs have been required to be paid minimum wage for the last several years. I believe there is some allowance to reflect the fact that the host family is providing them room and board, but if I recall correctly, it's minimal. I think there's probably some happy middle ground.

[waverly]

@ I never pursued an au pair because I didn't want someone living with us, and we didn't have an extra bedroom. I didn't want to be responsible for a teenager/ young adult.

This is au pair adjacent, camp counselors from the U.S. (local) or abroad. When they took out room and board, I made way less than minimum wage and worked up to 16 hours a day with a 2 hour break. I was given 1/2 day off every week, and 24 hours off only every 2 weeks.

Camp counselors from abroad were billed more as a cultural exchange but when you are staying at a camp in the middle of rural America with no car, how much can you really see?

The Girl Scout daycamp around me doubled their prices. When I inquired why, they said because women weren't working for super low wages anymore (wow fancy that). I told them they should have been paying them higher all along, but they didn't respond. This year, they closed the camp.

[icedcoffee]

If you have an au pair and do it correctly it can be a great gig. By correctly I mean a comfortable living situation with transportation, access to something worth seeing, including them on fun family vacations. 45 hours of work a week max. But this also means it is not cheap at all.

The problem is lots of families don't do it like this and in those cases the au pair ends up just being a live in caretaker who makes pennies.

My friend has an au pair and I sometimes judge them for certain aspects. They haven't taken her on any vacations, she doesn't have her own car and lives in the suburbs so if the friend and her H are both gone she has no transport.

All I know is an au pair is not for me. I'd hate being one and having one in my house. #daycare for the win!

[rhian]

Wow, we were never interested in a nanny or au pair for multiple reasons, so I didn't know anything about this. I didn't realize how underpaid most au pairs are. Some of the arguments for not raising au pair wages in that article are so bad! They are doing work - of course that they should be paid at minimum wage. The fact that there's a childcare crisis isn't relevant! Is anyone suggesting that we should pay grocery store workers less because groceries are more expensive?!

I think I'd be okay with some sort of adjustment to au pair minimum wage take into account room and board. Does anyone know how that works in other industries where room and board are provided? How does it affect minimum wage for those positions? It seems like there should be examples of this that could be applied to au pairs.

[archiethedragon]

"I owe my soul to the company store"

[basilosaurus]

Mar 21, 2024 11:21:08 GMT -5 waverly said:

@ I never pursued an au pair because I didn't want someone living with us, and we didn't have an extra bedroom. I didn't want to be responsible for a teenager/ young adult.

This is au pair adjacent, camp counselors from the U.S. (local) or abroad. When they took out room and board, I made way less than minimum wage and worked up to 16 hours a day with a 2 hour break. I was given 1/2 day off every week, and 24 hours off only every 2 weeks.

Camp counselors from abroad were billed more as a cultural exchange but when you are staying at a camp in the middle of rural America with no car, how much can you really see?

The Girl Scout daycamp around me doubled their prices. When I inquired why, they said because women weren't working for super low wages anymore (wow fancy that). I told them they should have been paying them higher all along, but they didn't respond. This year, they closed the camp.

I made something stupid like $50/wk as a counselor. But compared to when my parents paid for being a camper the years before no one questioned it. I got cabin and food without pay, so all good. /S

[aprilsails]

On the topic of camp counselors I worked on a training camp on a tall ship. We averaged out our pay for the summer based on our 'honorarium' and I think mine came to 0.27c per hour.

Granted, it was super fun (for me), I did get to travel, very slowly, all over the place, and if you put on your resume that you have licences to captain up to 100 tonnes and have a year at sea you will never not get a job you apply for. I've never had a job interview be about my actual normal experience. Every interviewer is very impressed by that one fact.