A $162 million wage theft settlement for nearly 200,000 Medicaid-funded home health aides in New York received preliminary federal court approval on July 1, according to AMNY. Eastern District of New York Magistrate Judge Lara K. Eshkenazi approved the settlement to move forward at a hearing that day; Senior Judge Frederic Block still needs to give final approval, which is expected in November.
If that final approval comes through, the payout would be one of the largest class action settlements over lost wages in New York history. Hugh Baran of Katz Banks Kumin LLP, who represented the plaintiffs alongside the Legal Aid Society, told the court the $162 million figure exceeds the combined wage enforcement recoveries of the state Department of Labor, the state Attorney General, and the city Department of Consumer and Worker Protection over the past year.
About 200,000 personal assistants across New York City, Long Island, and Westchester County stand to receive an average of $680 each, AMNY reported. That works out to roughly one week’s pay per worker.
The lawsuit followed a 2024 state decision to consolidate New York’s Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program, or CDPAP, under a single administrator. CDPAP, which has operated for more than 30 years, lets disabled and elderly people hire Medicaid-funded caregivers from their own families or social networks. The state previously spread that administrative work across hundreds of organizations; in 2024 it handed the contract for all 300,000 aides statewide to PPL. Workers said the transition produced what the lawsuit described as “a dizzying array of technical problems” that delayed and shorted their pay. The class action was filed last May.
The specific allegations against PPL: failure to pay overtime, delayed paychecks, a broken timekeeping portal, and incorrect pay rates. Workers also argued PPL violated the state Wage Parity Act, which requires a supplemental benefits package on top of base wages for home aides in New York City and Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester counties.
The settlement includes $40.5 million in general damages for the wage-and-hour claims. Another $25 million returns money to class members to settle claims over a preventative care program PPL had created to meet the Wage Parity Act requirement. That program is being shut down, and the 40 cents per hour PPL dedicated to it will now go into a retirement account, which plaintiff attorneys estimated at $120 million in total value per year. The remaining $92 million covers paid time off. Baran told the court that PPL’s own data showed only about 15 percent of accrued PTO balances had been used, because home health aides are largely caring for family members and stepping away means leaving them without support.
“They don’t want to take the time off because, for the most part, they are caring for family members and friends, and so taking time off means taking time away from them and their care,” Baran said, according to AMNY.
Workers do not need to take any action to receive the payout. The total $162 million divides into $157.5 million in direct payments and $4.5 million held in a reserve fund.
PPL issued a statement acknowledging the settlement but denying liability. “We categorically deny the allegations in this lawsuit, and the settlement reflects no admission of liability or wrongdoing,” the company said.
A separate issue surfaced during the July 1 hearing, AMNY reported. PPL began presenting workers with mandatory arbitration agreements for future wage claims around the same time it agreed to the settlement. Those agreements would require any future wage disputes to be handled individually and confidentially, outside of court. Judge Eshkenazi warned that the move would expose PPL to further litigation and confusion, noting that some workers had already expressed uncertainty about whether the arbitration paperwork was connected to the settlement payout. “In these agreements … there are lots of issues that people don’t really know what they’re signing,” Eshkenazi said, according to AMNY.
Outside the Eastern District courthouse, Valerie Joseph, a disabled person who relies on a home aide and uses a motorized wheelchair, told AMNY the settlement meant she could keep her care in place. “If I don’t have care, I can’t function during the day and at night. They’re my hands. They’re my everything. If I don’t have an aide, I can’t get here,” Joseph said.
