BUILDER NEWS Moving up: How builders can address the needs of multigenerational households Labor Department Overturns Obama-era Joint Employer, Misclassification Guidance SecrIn a victory for NAHB members and the small business community, etary of Labor Alexander Acosta on June 7 announced the withdrawal of the Department of Labor’s (DOL) 2015 and 2016 informal guidance on independent contractors and joint employment — two Obama-era documents that expanded the tests for what constitutes a joint employer and an independent contractor, respectively. The 2016 guidance document arguably signaled DOL’s intent to increase aggressive enforcement of joint employment status in its investigations, and NAHB is pleased that DOL is rescinding it. Likewise, NAHB commends the agency because it placed undue burdens on our members to show that the subcontractors they hire are independent contractors and not employees. As previously reported in 2015, DOL issued administrative guidance on the application of standards for who is an employee under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The guidance document represented a fundamental shift by DOL away from the established common law control test (based on the control an employer exercises over how, when, where, and by whom work is performed) in favor of economic realities factors (based on the nature and profitability of the work performed and how integral it is to the business) in determining whether a worker is truly an independent contractor rather than an employee. Read More is trL iving with mom and dad it ending. That is, whether due to financial, health or other circumstances, young adults are moving back home after college and older adults are moving in with their children later in life, bringing multigenerational households to the forefront once again. This style of living, wherein two or more adult generations or the combination of grandparents, parents and grandchildren live together under one roof, has a long history. Whereas 19% of the U.S. population, or 60.6 million people, had such an arrangement in 2014, a 21% share of the population did so in 1950, according to data from the Pew Research Center. The more recent figure is up from the category low of 12% in 1980. Elderly parents moving in with their adult children once drove the trend. Today, however, young adults moving back in with their parents, or to not yet have left home, are the leading factor. In 2014, 31% of young adults ages 25 to 29 lived in multigenerational households. Meanwhile, 23% of adults ages 55 to 64 and 21% of those 65 years of age and older lived with other generations, according to Pew. Read More 30 HBRA of Fairfield County | JUNE 2017
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