Groups supporting the proposed increase in the income threshold were concerned many low-level workers misclassified as managers wouldn’t benefit from the protections offered by the new rule.
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“We still need to make sure employees get the overtime they’ve earned”, Obama said in his State of the Union address earlier this year. “In this country, a hard day’s work deserves a fair day’s pay”, Obama wrote.
The proposal will be subject to a public comment period and will be finalized sometime next year. Workers will be happy to get an opportunity to put in some more hours of work for extra money. Secretary Thomas Perez estimates the change will inject one-point-two-billion dollars into the economy. Just mandating higher wages does not mean businesses can afford to pay them.
Presently, employers avoid paying overtime to these managers by paying them more than $455 a week and giving them supervisory duties, which places them in a separate employment category not eligible for OT.
Eason said it would also provide overtime to many workers in industries like retail and hospitality, who have been exempt – but are not actually the type of highly paid white-collar workers the law was supposed to exempt.
The rule, which will appear in the Federal Register in coming days, would increase from 8 percent to about 40 percent the percentage of workers who qualify automatically for time-and-a-half pay whenever they work more than 40 hours in any given week.
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“As has always been the case, the proposed salary levels wouldn’t apply to individuals employed as outside sales employees”, noted Alex Passantino on the Wage and Hour Litigation Blog. Founder and President Scott Gittrich, he simply said, “The rules are going to force more people into part-time work, and we’re already seeing that with Obamacare”. Overtime rules have not been updated since 2004, and over time, their efficacy has diminished due to inflation. Tell us on our Facebook page.
