Household services are the unpaid work an injured person can no longer perform at home. The loss is measured as the hours no longer performed, established from the household's account and time-use data, multiplied by the cost of replacing that work with paid labor in the local market, and projected over life expectancy as the household changes. This guide describes what counts, how hours and rates are established, and which records support the claim.
Household services are the tasks a person performs for the household without pay: meal preparation, cleaning, laundry, shopping, home and yard maintenance, household management and bill paying, driving family members, and care of children, elderly parents, or a disabled family member. When an injury reduces a person's capacity for those tasks, the household either does without, redistributes the work to other members, or pays someone. Each is a loss with economic value, and the household services valuation measures it as the cost of replacement.
The starting point is what the person actually did. The household's own account, by task and by week, is the primary evidence, and it is corroborated by published time-use survey data, which report the hours people of the same sex, age, employment status, and household composition spend on each category of household work. Where the household's account is far from the survey averages, the report explains why: a parent of young children, a person maintaining a large property, or a caregiver for a disabled relative will differ from the average, and the record should show it. The household services method page describes the data.
Capacity is assessed task by task from the medical and functional evidence, not as a single percentage. A person with a back injury may still cook and manage the household but no longer do yard work, carry laundry, or lift a child. The lost hours are the difference between pre-injury hours and post-injury capacity in each category, and the report shows the categories separately so the trier of fact can see where the loss falls. Where the medical evidence expects capacity to change over time, the projection changes with it.
Each task category is valued at the wage of the occupation that would perform it in the market where the household lives: cooks, housekeepers and maids, childcare workers, grounds maintenance workers, and similar occupations, from published occupational wage data by metropolitan area. Replacement cost is the mainstream measure and the report says so; where the household has actually hired help, the invoices corroborate both the hours and the rate. The rates are carried forward with wage growth on the same basis as the rest of the analysis.
Household services run over life expectancy from the current published life tables, not over worklife, because household work continues after retirement. The projection reflects the household's composition changing over time, children reaching adulthood and leaving, for example, and the decline in hours with age that the time-use data show. The future portion is reduced to present value with the rest of the loss, as the present value method describes.
The claim is easier to prove with a few documents collected early: a written account from the household of who did which tasks before and after the injury, with approximate weekly hours; medical and functional evidence addressing physical capacity for household tasks, not only for work; invoices or receipts for any paid help since the injury; and information about the household's composition and any changes expected. The lost earnings guide describes the parallel records for the earnings claim, and the personal injury case type page describes how the components fit together.
Yes. Employed people spend fewer hours on household work than people not in the labor force, and the time-use data reflect that, but the hours are rarely zero. The projection uses the hours for the person's actual employment status.
No. The loss is the value of the work no longer performed, measured at what it would cost to replace, whether or not the household has paid for replacement. Where help has been hired, the invoices strengthen the claim.
It is a separate component of economic damages, valued on its own evidence and presented on its own schedule. A person can have a household services loss with no earnings loss, and the reverse.
Request a consultation on Household Services in Personal Injury Claims or call (201) 343-0700. Plaintiff and defense counsel.