Getting Paid for Overtime In March, President Obama instructed the Labor Department to update federal rules on who is eligible for overtime pay. An important and needed change is to raise the salary threshold above which salaried workers are not guaranteed time-and-a-half pay when they work more than 40 hours a week. That level is currently a paltry $455 a week; it would be $984 a week if it simply had been adjusted for inflation since 1975, when the rules were last substantially revised. This week, Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, and eight Democratic co-sponsors introduced a bill to gradually raise the salary threshold to $1,090 a week and to index it to inflation after that. At that level, nearly half of salaried workers would be eligible for overtime, which is fair and reasonable. In 1975, 65 percent of salaried workers were eligible for overtime pay; today, after nearly 40 years of erosion, only 12 percent qualify. Even if the bill doesnt become law, it shows the Labor Department where it should aim in updating the rules.
Posted on: Fri, 20 Jun 2014 20:25:12 +0000
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