Some officials at the Department of Labor are urging the president to lift the threshold as high as $51,000 before someone could be called an executive exempt from overtime.
Woo Hoo! Obama Administration Rewriting Overtime Laws
April 23, 2015

This is great news. Activists have been calling for this for a while, and this will be a huge help to many working people:

President Barack Obama is preparing to do what the U.S. economic recovery has been slow to accomplish: raise the wages of millions of Americans.

His administration is drafting new rules on who qualifies for overtime compensation, forcing more businesses to pay time-and-a-half after 40 hours of work. Many employees now earning as little as $23,660 a year -- below the federal poverty line for a family of four -- aren’t entitled to overtime pay because they are considered managers.

While Republicans in Congress have blocked proposals to raise the minimum wage, Obama can change the overtime rules through executive authority. Some officials at the Department of Labor are urging the president to lift the threshold as high as $51,000 before someone could be called an executive exempt from overtime. A group of 26 Democratic senators has asked him to push it even higher, to $56,680.

“This is absolutely one of the best practical ways to give people the on-ramp to the middle class,” said one of the lawmakers, Sherrod Brown of Ohio. “When you strip people of their overtime pay, which is what’s happened over the years, they really don’t have a chance to get ahead: They’re working harder and harder and not seeing real pay increases.”

Opponents argue that pushing the level too high could force fast-food restaurants, retailers and other enterprises to cut employment or even go out of business.

Can you help us out?

For nearly 20 years we have been exposing Washington lies and untangling media deceit, but now Facebook is drowning us in an ocean of right wing lies. Please give a one-time or recurring donation, or buy a year's subscription for an ad-free experience. Thank you.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon