WASHINGTON (AP) — Unprecedented minimum wages for thousands of nursing home workers in Minnesota are delayed again.
Leah Solo, executive director of the state’s Nursing Home Workforce Standards Board, said at a board meeting Thursday that the Trump administration has reset to day one its 90-day clock to review the wage floor. Under the still pending state law, nursing facility employees must earn at least $19 an hour this year and $20.50 in 2027, with workers who have nursing licenses netting substantially more.
“I hate to bring bad news,” Solo said to a board that was trying to wrap its head around the Trump administration’s move and asked a series of unanswerable questions about what comes next.
The Trump administration action marks the second major bureaucratic delay over a wage floor that was set to go into effect Jan. 1. It comes as the first of its kind workforce board faces a lawsuit from nursing homes calling for its elimination.
The wage floor must receive approval from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, because it stipulates that CMS will provide $18 million to Minnesota’s Medicaid program to help nursing homes pay for the salary bumps. The state also chips in $18 million.
Under federal Medicaid law, CMS officials have 90 days at most to examine the funding request. However. CMS is allowed to wind back the clock on this review if they ask the state for more information.
According to Solo, on Wednesday – day 89 in this 90-day evaluation period – CMS wrote to the state requesting more information, and thus restarting the review.
Because it administers Medicaid, it is the Minnesota Department of Human Services and not the workforce board that sought federal approval.
So, CMS’s email Wednesday was sent not to Solo and the workforce board but the Department of Human Services, which, in turn, emailed Solo Wednesday night.
It is unclear what information CMS wants from Minnesota officials. The Department of Human Services did not convey this to Solo.
As of Thursday afternoon, the Department of Human Services said it was working on a response to questions about what information the letter contained. CMS did not respond to messages.
The wage statute was initially delayed because the Department of Human Services was months late in filing its request to CMS. Human Services officials, who apologized for their tardiness, sent the necessary paperwork over in January (triggering said 90-day review).
Setting a wage floor for a specific industry is a relic of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal that has been resurrected by labor unions in blue states over the last 10 years.
Minnesota is the first state to specifically focus on the nursing home industry. The state has a long history of social programs that provide generous end-of-life services.
But the nursing home industry has fought the workforce board tooth and nail, including filing a lawsuit last month stating that the board “inflicts irreparable harm on nursing home providers and business partners across Minnesota.”
A federal court hearing is scheduled next month for the industry’s request for an injunction against the workforce board. The board, which includes members of industry who seek the panel’s demise, spent the first 45 minutes of its meeting in a closed session to discuss the lawsuit.
Solo declined to comment on the lawsuit.
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