The federal Department of Labor said the change could apply to 46,000 people in CT who are paid salaries instead of hourly wages but whose salaries are now above the threshold at which their employers have to pay them overtime. It enables 4.2 million workers access to overtime pay if they work more than 40 hours per week.
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The standard salary level is used to determine which salaried workers are eligible for overtime pay (time-and-a-half) if they work more than 40 hours per week. But it has gone too far in doubling the threshold so that any salaried employee earning less than $47,476 per year will be eligible for overtime. The Labor Department initially proposed an even higher income threshold of more than $50,000 but scaled that back in response to complaints that it didn’t reflect pay scales in low-wage parts of the country.
“You work really hard and then you don’t get paid for it”, said Danielle Carter, who’s for the new overtime law.
“We have a situation where you can work 70 hours a week and literally make the poverty wage of $24,000, which is the current threshold”, Labor Secretary Thomas Perez told NBC News.
VICE PRESIDENT JOSEPH BIDEN: We have got to right this ship, and this is a very important piece of doing it, because millions of people are going to start to get paid, not more than they deserve, what they deserve.
When will these changes take effect? She says she can see it from both the employee and the employers side. Overtime pay hasn’t gotten as much attention as nationwide efforts to increase the minimum wage, but it could have a broad impact. “But I think it’s also important that they look at their staffing practices, that they look at rationalizing their workforce, and that you can’t expect to demand an interminable amount of hours from employees and not pay for them.”.
It will put more than a billion extra dollars into the paychecks of 4.2 million people; a cost that could be a burden for businesses.
Mara Fortin, president and CEO of seven Nothing Bundt Cakes bakeries in San Diego, said she might give raises to her “superstar” managers to lift their pay above the overtime threshold.
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Barrasso says, “Once again, the Obama administration is using executive action to force a new job-crushing rule on American families and small businesses”. In Pennsylvania, according to the Economic Policy Institute, the rule will cover about 22 percent of all salaried workers.
