House Debates SHRM-Backed House Bill on Caregiving Benefits

On April 9, the House Committee on Education and Workforce held a full committee markup that included a discussion of H.R. 2270, which would impact workers across the country. The Empowering Employer Child Care and Elder Solutions Act “would add child and dependent care to the FLSA’s [Fair Labor Standards Act’s] list of exclusions and therefore allow employers to freely offer these benefits to workers with young children,” explained Rep. Mark Messmer, R-Ind., the bill’s sponsor.  

Debate on Child and Elder Care 

“The exploding cost of child care is a persistent challenge,” Messmer said as he opened the debate on H.R. 2270. He cited outdated labor laws that have made it “difficult and expensive for employers to offer” dependent care to hourly workers. “The risk of ballooning overtime costs limits [companies’] availability and flexibility to support workers,” he said. To address this issue, the bill would exclude child and dependent care services and payments from the regular rate used to compute overtime compensation.  

It would thus “encourage employers to offer child care and elder care benefits” and help “businesses invest in their workers,” Committee Chairman Tim Walberg, R-Mich., said in support of the bill. 

However, Ranking Member Bobby Scott, D-Va., expressed skepticism, suggesting H.R. 2270 does not address the core issue. “In practice,” he said, “the bill only incentivizes employers to pressure employees to work longer hours, keeping them away from their families for more hours and increasing their need for care.  

“This bill is a mirage,” Scott continued. “Even the Reagan administration recognized in 1983 that these kinds of dependent-care subsidies must be included in the regular rate.”  

SHRM Backs H.R. 2270

The day before the hearing, SHRM sent a letter to Walberg and Scott expressing its support for H.R. 2270. “A competitive job market demands equally competitive benefits,” wrote Emily M. Dickens, J.D., SHRM chief of staff and head of Government Affairs. In the face of labor shortages, “forward-thinking offerings are better positioned to attract and retain talent.”

Existing rules under the FLSA may disincentivize employers from offering the caregiving benefits employees want and need. “H.R. 2270 represents meaningful progress by encouraging employers to offer onsite or subsidized dependent care benefits ... [that] are excluded from the ‘regular rate’ calculation under the Fair Labor Standards Act,” Dickens wrote.  

SHRM previously raised the issue in 2019, and its recent research shows caregiving is a legitimate and pressing concern for employees and employers alike. “Over 80% of working caregivers expect their caregiving responsibilities to be long-term,” Dickens wrote. “In the next five years, 14% of workers anticipate taking on new or additional adult care responsibilities, and 18% expect to assume new or expanded elder care duties.”  

Just as Messmer on Wednesday lamented outdated labor laws, SHRM previously argued for “the need to modernize the FLSA” and submitted recommendations to the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections regarding dependent care benefits.

Debate on Worker Training 

Also included in the hearing was a discussion of H.R. 2262, the Flexibility for Workers Education Act. It would amend the FLSA to exclude “voluntary professional development from counting toward the total number of hours worked,” said Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill.  

By excluding voluntary professional development from counting toward the total number of hours worked, H.R. 2262 would encourage employers to offer more training opportunities, Miller said. She called the bill “a simple and effective fix” that would remove the disincentives to employers who want to provide off-the-clock training without having it count toward compensable hours worked.  

Scott objected to the bill, calling it “exploitive.” It is “based on a cynical, flawed premise that to provide workers with certain opportunities or benefits, employers must be able to pay them less,” he said.  

“To qualify for the bill, the worker cannot do any work for the employer during the professional development,” Miller countered. 

Scott, however, found this notion overly optimistic. The bill “would allow employers to hold training for workers’ jobs after hours and off-the-clock as long as they do not say that it is technically required,” he said. Scott then identified a potential loophole: Employers “can still lead workers to believe that the training is required and get away with not paying for that time.”  

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., agreed with Scott’s assessment. H.R. 2262 would potentially reduce wages “without clear guardrails, especially if workers feel pressured to attend the training,” she warned.

SHRM does not have a stated position on H.R. 2262. 

Rachel Zheliabovskii is a specialist, B2C content, at SHRM.