Caregiver costs · Los Angeles, CA

Caregiver costs in Los Angeles: the city wage floor, hourly reference points and monthly budgets

By the CaregiverConnect team · Updated 2026-10-31 · Sources checked on the same date and listed at the end.

Hiring help at home inside the City of Los Angeles starts from a higher legal floor than most of California: $18.42 an hour since July 1, 2026. This page sets out who that floor covers, how it compares with the IHSS wage, government wage surveys and agency prices, and what 20 hours, 40 hours and a live-in week cost once overtime is counted. Every figure comes from a public source listed at the end, checked on October 31, 2026.

Find caregivers in Los Angeles

Rates caregivers list on CaregiverConnect near Los Angeles

Median listed rate: $27.50/hr
Middle half: $23.50 to $33.75
Lowest to highest: $20 to $50
Caregivers counted: 6 within 25 miles

What independent caregivers who signed up near Los Angeles ask for, before any agreement with a family. Sample and test profiles are excluded. This is a small sample from one website, not a market survey; it updates as caregivers join. Checked 2026-10-31.

The Los Angeles minimum wage for a caregiver you hire yourself

Los Angeles has its own Minimum Wage Ordinance, enforced by the City's Office of Wage Standards (Wages LA). On July 1, 2026 the rate rose by $0.55, from $17.87 to $18.42 an hour, under an annual adjustment tied to the Los Angeles-area consumer price index (CPI-W). New rates are announced each February and start each July 1.

Private households are not carved out. Wages LA counts as an Employee anyone who, in a given week, performs at least two hours of work inside the City for any Employer and is entitled to earn the California minimum wage, and the Labor Commissioner (DIR) confirms that domestic workers, caregivers and personal attendants included, are entitled to it, except babysitters under 18 and the employer's own parent, spouse or child. A caregiver you employ for two or more hours a week in a home within City limits is owed at least $18.42 for those hours.

The address of the work decides it. If your parent's home is inside the City, the City rate applies even when the caregiver lives elsewhere.
A "Los Angeles" mailing address is not proof of City limits. Unincorporated parts of the county follow the County ordinance: $18.47 an hour since July 1, 2026, for anyone working two or more hours a week there. The Department of Consumer and Business Affairs (DCBA) says it applies to all employers except public-sector ones, exempts anyone exempt from the state minimum, and publishes a lookup, "Is This Workplace in an Unincorporated Area?"
Other cities in the county use the state minimum of $16.90 (DIR) unless they have their own ordinance; the Long Beach cost page covers a neighbor that does not.

Three different numbers: private pay, agency prices and IHSS

Three kinds of hourly figure turn up when you price care in Los Angeles. They measure different things.

Kind of figure	Los Angeles number	What it measures
1. Paid to a caregiver you hire directly	At least $18.42 inside City limits	The legal floor (Wages LA); above it, whatever you and the caregiver agree.
2. Charged to a family by an agency	$40 an hour	CareScout 2025 Cost of Care Survey, California median hourly rate for a non-medical caregiver ($7,627 a month for 44 hours a week). Statewide only; no Los Angeles figure.
3. Paid by a government program	$19.64 an hour	Los Angeles County IHSS provider wage, effective January 1, 2026 (CDSS county wage workbook).

IHSS hours are authorized by the County for Medi-Cal recipients and paid by the program, not the family; see the IHSS Los Angeles County guide. The rates in the box at the top of this page come from caregivers' own profiles and are set by them, not by CaregiverConnect.

What employed aides earn in the Los Angeles metro area (BLS, May 2025)

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey reports pay for SOC 31-1120 (the home health and personal care aide group) over the metro area it calls Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim. The table gives the BLS OEWS May 2025 figures as shown by O*NET OnLine, the Department of Labor's occupation database:

Percentile	Hourly
10th	$16.50
25th	$16.50
Median (50th)	$16.50
75th	$17.13
90th	$18.28

Two dates help read this table. The state minimum wage was $16.50 for all of 2025 (DIR), so the bottom half of aides in the survey were paid at or near the statewide floor. The City of Los Angeles rate at the time of the survey was $17.28 (in force from July 1, 2024, per Wages LA), and the current City rate of $18.42 is above even the 90th-percentile wage from May 2025. These are wages of people employed by agencies, facilities and other employers across the whole metro area, not quotes from caregivers hired privately in the City.

The narrower Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale metropolitan division table could not be retrieved for this page, so the wider metro area is shown. Certified nursing assistants (SOC 31-1131) in the metro area had a median of $22.78 in the same survey.

Los Angeles budgets: 20 hours, 40 hours and live-in, with the arithmetic

These are illustrative calculations, not quotes or market rates. Each row uses three hourly inputs: the City minimum of $18.42; an illustrative private rate of $22, chosen only because it sits above the $19.64 County IHSS wage; and the $40 California agency median from CareScout. Monthly totals are the weekly figure × 52 ÷ 12. Overtime in the table is California's personal-attendant rule (DIR): 1.5 × the regular rate once a shift tops nine hours or the week tops 45. That is the state line only. For a live-out caregiver doing mostly hands-on care, federal law starts overtime once the week tops 40 hours (29 U.S.C. 207(l); 29 CFR 552.100), which neither weekday row exceeds; a worker who lives in is exempt from that federal rule (29 U.S.C. 213(b)(21)).

Schedule	At the $18.42 City minimum	Illustrative $22 private rate	At the $40 agency median
20 hours a week: four 5-hour mornings	20 × $18.42 = $368.40 a week, about $1,596 a month	20 × $22 = $440 a week, about $1,907 a month	20 × $40 = $800 per week; ≈ $3,467 per month
40 hours a week: five 8-hour weekdays, no overtime	40 × $18.42 = $736.80 a week, about $3,193 a month	40 × $22 = $880 a week, about $3,813 a month	40 × $40 = $1,600 per week; ≈ $6,933 per month
Live-in: one caregiver on duty 12 hours daily for five days, truly free the rest of the time	Each day is 9 regular + 3 overtime hours. Week: 45 × $18.42 + 15 × $27.63 = $1,243.35, about $5,388 a month	45 × $22 + 15 × $33 = $1,485 a week, about $6,435 a month	CareScout publishes no live-in figure

Hiring directly also means paying your own 7.65% toward Social Security and Medicare once a worker's cash pay for 2026 reaches $3,000 (IRS Topic 756). For the $22 forty-hour row, that comes to $880 × 7.65% = $67.32 a week, about $292 a month. The live-in row leaves the other two days uncovered; a second caregiver or family member fills them, and their hours are a separate cost. For the full arithmetic on round-the-clock schedules, see live-in versus 24-hour care and what overnight care costs.

Live-in and overnight pay rules in Los Angeles

The City sets the hourly floor; overtime and live-in rules come from state law and depend on what the caregiver mostly does.

Personal attendants, in DIR's words, are employed by a private householder to supervise, feed and dress a person who needs assistance because of advanced age, physical disability or mental deficiency. If more than 20 percent of the time goes to other work such as housecleaning, cooking or laundry, the worker is not a personal attendant. California owes attendants overtime once a day exceeds 9 hours or a week exceeds 45. If they live out and the work is mostly hands-on, they are not exempt companions (29 CFR 552.6), so the federal 40-hour weekly line (29 U.S.C. 207(l)) is reached first.
Live-in household workers who are not attendants follow Wage Order 15 instead: overtime after 9 hours in a day and for the first 9 hours on the 6th and 7th consecutive days, double time beyond that on those days (DIR).
Time on call counts. Under Wage Order 15, any time spent under the employer's control is hours worked. A caregiver told to stay in the house and respond at night is working.
Room and meals can be credited against minimum wage only under a voluntary written agreement made before work starts, capped for 2026 at $79.46 weekly for a single-occupancy room; breakfast may be credited at up to $6.10, lunch $8.42 and dinner $11.28 (Wage Order 15).

Federal rules on live-in and sleep time are in the live-in care cost guide.

What moves a Los Angeles caregiver rate up or down

Duties. Companionship and errands are a different job from bathing, toileting and transfers, and the split decides whether overtime follows the personal-attendant rule. Compare companion care and personal care in Los Angeles.
Training. The $22.78 metro median for certified nursing assistants against $16.50 for aides shows what a credential is worth to employers (BLS OEWS, May 2025, via O*NET). Experience with a condition such as Parkinson's is a fair reason for a caregiver to ask more, and for you to ask how they gained it.
Memory loss tends to add hours. LA County's Aging and Disabilities Department runs L.A. Found, a free tracking-bracelet program for people with dementia who may wander. See dementia care in Los Angeles and what in-home dementia care costs.
Schedule shape. A 10-hour day costs an hour of overtime under the 9-hour rule; two 5-hour visits do not. Short visits, nights and weekends cost the caregiver flexibility, and the rate may reflect that.
Travel. If the caregiver drives your relative, agree mileage and whose car is used.

The caregiver interview checklist covers pay, minimum shifts and cancellation; what companion care costs explains how mostly social help is priced.

Costs of being the employer in Los Angeles

City paid sick leave. At least 48 hours a year, front-loaded or accrued at one hour per 30 worked, for employees who work two or more hours a week in the City for the same employer for 30 days or more in a year; unused time carries over, with any cap set at 72 hours or more. Wages LA says the state's SB 616 does not preempt these stricter rules. Outside the City, the state minimum is five days or 40 hours a year, whichever is more (DIR).
State payroll taxes. Once a quarter's cash pay reaches $750, you have 15 days to register with EDD. State Disability Insurance is withheld from that level, and at $1,000 you start paying Unemployment Insurance and Employment Training Tax as well.
Federal payroll taxes. From $3,000 in 2026 cash wages, withhold 7.65% and match it; FUTA is due on the first $7,000 of each worker's pay once any quarter's household wages pass $1,000 (IRS Topic 756).
Workers' compensation is required "even if they have only one employee" (DIR).

The hiring guide covers the paperwork step by step.

Local help and next steps in Los Angeles

City of Los Angeles Department of Aging, part of the City's Community Investment Department since July 1, 2026: meals, transportation, family caregiver resources and senior centers, 213-482-7252.
LA County Aging and Disabilities Department: County-wide programs including L.A. Found; elder abuse reports on 1-877-477-3646.
Wage questions: Wages LA (City), (213) 847-2670; DCBA (unincorporated County), 800-593-8222.

When you know the hours and duties, browse caregivers in Los Angeles or live-in caregivers. CaregiverConnect is a marketplace, not an agency: browsing and posting are free, caregivers set their own rates, you hire and pay them directly with no commission, and you do your own screening, since CaregiverConnect does not run background checks. Premium plans, which are optional, are described under pricing.

Frequently asked questions

What hourly minimum applies to home caregivers in Los Angeles in 2026?

Inside the City of Los Angeles the floor is $18.42 an hour, in force since July 1, 2026. It reaches anyone putting in two or more hours of work there in a week who is entitled to the state minimum wage, privately hired caregivers included. Unincorporated LA County is $18.47. Other cities without their own ordinance use the state rate of $16.90.

What is the hourly cost of a caregiver in Los Angeles?

There is no official private rate. The reference points are the $18.42 City floor, the $19.64 IHSS wage in Los Angeles County, the metro-wide $16.50 median paid to employed aides (BLS OEWS, May 2025, via O*NET), and CareScout's $40 California agency median. Any private rate is something you and the caregiver negotiate.

Does the Los Angeles minimum wage apply to a caregiver hired by a family?

Yes, for hours worked inside City limits. Wages LA's definition of a covered employee takes in anybody working a minimum of two hours within the City in a given week, for any employer, and is entitled to the California minimum wage, and DIR confirms domestic workers are entitled to it, apart from babysitters under 18 and the employer's parent, spouse or child.

Do I have to give a Los Angeles caregiver paid sick leave?

Inside the City, the ordinance requires at least 48 hours a year, front-loaded or accrued at one hour per 30 worked, once the caregiver has worked for you for 30 days in a year. Outside the City, the state rule of five days or 40 hours a year applies.

What does a live-in caregiver cost in Los Angeles?

It depends on the hours on duty. As an illustration, a personal attendant on duty 12 hours a day, five days a week, earns 45 regular and 15 overtime hours a week: at $22 an hour that is $1,485 a week, about $6,435 a month, before payroll taxes. Room and board can offset minimum wage only by prior written agreement and within Wage Order 15 limits.

Sources

Find caregivers in Los Angeles

Browse caregivers for free, then agree the duties, schedule and rate directly with the person you hire.

Find caregivers in Los Angeles

Caregiver costs in Los Angeles: the city wage floor, hourly reference points and monthly budgets

Rates caregivers list on CaregiverConnect near Los Angeles

The Los Angeles minimum wage for a caregiver you hire yourself

Three different numbers: private pay, agency prices and IHSS

What employed aides earn in the Los Angeles metro area (BLS, May 2025)

Los Angeles budgets: 20 hours, 40 hours and live-in, with the arithmetic

Live-in and overnight pay rules in Los Angeles

What moves a Los Angeles caregiver rate up or down

Costs of being the employer in Los Angeles

Local help and next steps in Los Angeles

Frequently asked questions

Sources

Find caregivers in Los Angeles

Related pages

Cost and hiring guides