NEW YORK (AP) — The Biden administration proposed a new rule Wednesday that would make 3.6 million more U.S. workers eligible for overtime pay, the most generous such increase in decades.
The rule revives an Obama-era effort that faced pushback from business leaders and Republicans and was ultimately scuttled in court. Business groups Labor advocates and liberal lawmakers have pushed the Biden administration to take the fight back up, arguing that overtime protections have been sharply eroded over the decades by wage stagnation and inflation.
The proposed regulation, unveiled by the Department of Labor, would require employers to pay overtime to salaried workers who are in executive, administrative and professional roles but make less than $1,059 a week, or $55,068 a year for full-time employees. That salary threshold is up from $35,568 level that has been in place since 2019 when the Trump administration raised it from $23,660, in a more modest increase than President Barack Obama's earlier proposal.
The rule, which is subject to a public commentary period and wouldn't take effect for months, would have the biggest impact on retail, food, hospitality, manufacturing and other industries where many managerial employees meet the new threshold.
“I’ve heard from workers again and again about working long hours, for no extra pay, all while earning low salaries that don’t come anywhere close to compensating them for their sacrifices,” acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su said in a statement.
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, almost all U.S. hourly workers are entitled to overtime pay after 40 hours a week, at no less than time-and-half their regular rates. But salaried workers who perform executive, administrative or professional roles are exempt from that requirement unless they earn below a certain level.
The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute has estimated that about 15% of full-time salaried workers are entitled to overtime pay under the Trump-era policy. The new rule would almost double that to nearly 30%, according to Labor Department figures.
That's still fewer than the more than 60% of salaried workers who were entitled to overtime pay in the 1970s, according to the institute. The overtime rule has been sporadically updated over the past decades, with the Trump increase being the first since 2004. The Labor Department's new rule attempts to change that pattern by adopting automatic increases to the salary threshold every three years.
Business leaders quickly criticized the new rule, saying it would add to labor challenges and saddle companies with new costs as they grapple with higher interest rates, inflation and economic uncertainty.