Gothamist: Firm behind NY's troubled home health care overhaul agrees to $160M wage settlement
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Published Jun 24, 2026
The company behind the rocky overhaul of a massive home health care service in New York has agreed to pay out $160 million to thousands of workers as part of a class-action settlement over unpaid wages.
The settlement, pending a judge’s approval, comes in a lawsuit filed against the company PPL in April 2025, brought by home care workers in the state’s Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program. PPL took over operations of the publicly funded program that January, replacing hundreds of smaller companies.
The workers alleged that, in the transition, they received paychecks that were late or inaccurate, or didn’t get paid at all. According to the complaint, tens of thousands of home care workers in New York City, Westchester and Long Island experienced payment errors because of PPL’s mismanagement.
In a statement on the settlement, PPL denied any wrongdoing.
“We categorically deny the allegations in this lawsuit, and the settlement reflects no admission of liability or wrongdoing,” said Meg Fitzgerald, a PPL spokesperson. “We look forward to putting this matter behind us."
CDPAP serves more than 200,000 New Yorkers with disabilities, allowing them to use Medicaid funds to hire friends or family as assistants, with PPL logging workers’ hours and cutting their checks.
Philip Calderon of Staten Island gets paid through CDPAP to help his father, who has severe arthritis.
“This settlement will put money back into workers’ pockets and ensure we all can continue to provide a critical service to the hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers in the CDPAP program,” Calderon said.
The settlement is the latest blow for PPL, a Latham, New York, firm formerly based in Georgia, tapped by the Hochul administration in 2024 to be the sole administrator of CDPAP, replacing more than 600 smaller firms.
The Hochul administration says the change has saved taxpayers more than $1 billion so far and improved oversight of the program. But the U.S. Department of Justice sued PPL and multiple state health officials last week, alleging that the company was selected through a “sham” bidding process and misrepresented its ability to administer the sprawling home care service.
CDPAP consumers and workers began raising concerns early last year that PPL’s takeover was not going smoothly, and issues with the rollout ultimately led state officials to delay the timeline for it to be completed.
The Legal Aid Society and the firm Katz Banks Kumin LLP, which represented the workers in the class-action lawsuit over unpaid wages, posted details online Wednesday on how the $160 million would be distributed if the settlement is finalized.