Maria Jose Vence said she looks back fondly on her experience as an au pair, when she worked 40 hours a week as a child care provider for a chance to experience life in the U.S. 

The 25-year-old from Colombia described her Massachusetts-based host family as “wonderful people" and remains in touch since the March end of her two-year stint. She said the program gave her the opportunity to explore a new culture, and her $15-per-hour earnings allowed her to travel and save up for tuition at Lasell University, located in the same state as her host family, where she's working toward a master's degree in marketing.

"Fortunately, I had a wonderful family that gave me an excellent experience. They allowed me to live the experience as a cultural exchange," she said. "But we know that some families and some girls don't have the same experience."

Run by the State Department, the au pair programwas designed as a cultural exchange programwhere young foreigners between the ages of 18 and 26 – usually female – live with a host family for a year, with the opportunity to extend their stay up to a maximum of two years. The host family provides a place to stay, food and – in most states – a minimum stipend of just under $200 per week, while the au pair provides up to 45 hours per week of child care.   

The program is viewed by some as a cheaper alternative to daycare, which has seen costs rise at almost double the pace of overall inflation in recent years. Court cases have accused some host families of overworking and underpaying au pairs, and while many agree the program needs updating, there’s not a consensus on how.   

Holiday deals: Shop this season’s top products and sales curated by our editors.

"It's a good program," Vence said. But "it's not for everybody."

What is an au pair?

Launched in 1986, the au pair program is often viewed as an affordable alternative to traditional child care. While daycare can cost well over $10,000 per child per year, working with an au pair can cost just over $20,000 and offer more flexible hours. For some families – especially those with multiple kids – the savings can be significant.

“The options are just so unbelievably expensive, particularly when you start looking at multiple kids in a daycare setting,” said Natalie Jordan, senior vice president of government relations at Cultural Care Au Pair, a private agency contracted to match host families and au pairs. “That flexibility and the accessibility of that kind of (au pair) program is something that’s becoming more and more appealing.”  

Roughly 20,000 au pairs enter the country each year.

“It’s not the largest program in the world, but it is a really powerful one, and these one-on-one connections can really make a difference in how people see and experience this world,” Jordan added. 

The federally-mandated minimum weekly stipend of $195.75 – based on the $7.25 federal minimum wage, minus roughly $130 per week for food and lodging – hasn’t been updated since the last federal minimum wage increase in 2009, leaving au pairs today with less when factoring in inflation. The State Department last year proposed a policy change, but the plan received immense pushback, with critics concerned about a confusing pay structure that could double the cost for families.  

The stipend has remained consistent in states outside of Massachusetts, which in 2019 upped its au pairs’ pay to one based on the state’s minimum wage. After an analysis from the libertarian think tank Cato Institute showed the number of au pairs arriving in the Bay State dropped nearly 70% between 2019 and 2022, the state has been heralded as an example of how drastic wage increases could curtail the program. 

“So often, it sounds really nice to be like, caregiving is the most important job, we need to pay people more,” said Carrie Lukas, president of Independent Women's Forum, a conservative nonprofit that has proposed expanding the au pair program. But "there’s a huge potential cost to increasing wages, or to any of these things that are done in the name of helping au pairs, that will either restrict the number of jobs available” or create "black-market" jobs that leave workers with fewer protections.  

Jordan of Cultural Care Au Pair said the agency supports a “reasonable” wage increase but emphasized that the stipend is meant for an au pair’s recreational spending. All living expenses should be covered by the host family, she said. 

“(Au pairs) don’t have to worry about a mortgage, they don’t have to secure a car or car insurance, anything like that. The family is taking care of all of those expenses, and that includes three meals a day,” Jordan said. 

Others argue au pairs’ pay deserves a bigger boost.  

Isis Mabel Zàrate moved from Mexico to Massachusetts as an au pair in 2016, before the state updated the program's pay structure. She said the program helped her develop new skills and make friends from around the world, but there were costly surprises.

Au pairs are required to complete at least six hours of credit at an accredited U.S. post-secondary school in their first year, with host families on the hook for paying the first $500. Any additional expense is left up to the au pair, which saddled Mabel Zàrate with a $300 bill her first year.

Then there was the lack of insurance coverage. When Mabel Zàrate had an expired birth control implant removed in the U.S., she assumed the procedure would be covered by the health insurance offered through her au pair agency. Instead, Mabel Zàrate found herself on the hook for a roughly $4,000 medical bill that took her years to pay off.

“When I started the program, the expectations are the money that you’re earning is enough to cover education, for traveling,” she told USA TODAY. “When you arrive, you realize quickly that that isn't true.” 

Janie Chuang, a law professor at American University, supports an au pair wage rate that can compete with other child care wages. 

“It’s a program definitely in need of revision,” Chuang said. “There’s a need for affordable child care. But should migrant workers bear the burden of that?” 

Raising children is expensive.Some parents want it on the ballot

Mixed experiences

The path forward for the country’s au pair program isn’t clear. But even advocates of the program like host Mira Goto say there’s room to improve. 

Goto, 37 of Santa Cruz, California, has been a supporter of the program after growing up with au pairs. Now a mother of a 3-year-old, Goto and her husband are on their third au pair match. 

Goto loves introducing her son to new cultures through the program – especially now that they’re working with an au pair from Japan, since Goto’s husband is half-Japanese. Goto said she'll catch her son singing Japanese songs, and he's started to pick up phrases in the language. 

“The cultural exchange part was really appealing to us,” Goto said.

And Goto said she makes sure her au pair gets just as much back out of the program, paying her above the minimum stipend, allowing her plenty of time to travel, and making sure she’s invited to everything, from restaurant outings to large family gatherings. 

“I have one kid, but we are a family of four,” Goto said. 

But after years of getting to know her au pairs and their friends, Goto said she's heard horror stories of au pairs – often young women of color – being taken advantage of.  

One 2018 report on the au pair program based on 16 firsthand accounts found examples of “wage theft, coercion, sexual harassment, retaliation, and misrepresentation, among other abuses.” The paper, co-authored by the International Human Rights Law Clinic within American University, accused the J-1 au pair program of operating as a work program while “masquerading as a cultural exchange.” 

“Some (experiences) are really positive, and it’s a great opportunity for work – primarily for young women – to be able to work and earn money," said Anna Duncan, national director of organizing at the National Domestic Workers Alliance, an advocacy group and one of the organizations behind the report. “But, in many cases, it’s actually a very underpaid and – in too many cases – an abusive employment situation because the program is insufficiently regulated.” 

Jordan from Cultural Care Au Pair said the program is “comprehensively regulated” with plenty of vetting and safeguards like regular check-ins with a local coordinator, and pointed to surveys that show au pairs reporting high satisfaction rates. If there is misconduct, au pairs can report the problem to the agency or State Department and rematch with another host family.  

But rematching can be a gamble for au pairs, who risk losing their visas if they don't find another family within two weeks.

Goto said she’s met au pairs who are hesitant to report mistreatment to their agency out of fear of not getting a rematch or having to move to a new location and lose their friends.  

“In a perfect world, the host families would do better,” Goto said.