On Labor Day, we are proud of the traditions that brought us the eight-hour work day, paid vacation and sick days, and minimum wage and overtime protections. These basic labor standards helped to make our country the wealthiest in the world by creating a vast middle class able to buy the goods and services that kept our economy growing.

Unfortunately, more and more American workers find themselves without some of these basic labor protections. Amazingly, the fastest-growing occupations in the country—personal care and home health aides—are explicitly excluded from the Fair Labor Standards Act minimum wage and overtime protections. As a result, the 1.7 million workers who provide loving care and assistance to our frail and disabled family members are among the most poorly paid workers in our nation.

In 1974, the Fair Labor Standards Act was updated to include most domestic workers, such as cooks, maids, and yard workers. Today, the home care industry is one of the fastest-growing sectors of our economy. Federal and state policies explicitly promote care at home over facility-based care—and by 2018, home and community-based aides are expected to outnumber facility based aides by 2 to 1. Home care aides provide the same skilled services to their clients as certified nursing assistants provide to nursing home residents. These services include not only personal care such as bathing, dressing, and toileting, but assistance with mobility, oral and injected medications, nutrition, and monitoring of vital signs such as blood pressure. Clearly, these are not “companionship” services.

The Department of Labor recently held two listening sessions to solicit input on revising the companionship exemption, to ensure that workers who provide skilled home care services receive the fair wages they deserve. Industry advocates argued that narrowing the exemption would make care unaffordable for seniors and ...